My films travel on a tightrope between darkness and light, drama and comedy. My biggest ambition as a storyteller is to make you laugh, make you cry, and make you think. I’m inspired by an unlikely premise for a story that gives you that ‘never seen before feeling’, while touching on universal themes that I believe people across the world will identity with. My mental health drama Benchmarks, which asks the question - what would you say to your younger self - won ‘best short short’ at the London Independent Film Festival, and I was interviewed on Talk TV about the film. My short films have earned awards at international film festivals as well, including ‘The Last Jackolantern’ which won ‘best International short’ at Tennessee International Independent Film festival, a ‘best director of a short’ award at the Love & Hope International Film festival in Barcelona and best ‘long form short’ at the Skiptown Playhouse International Film festival in LA, and I was interviewed on BBC Radio about my homeless fairytale. My most recent film ‘In My Day’ is BIFA qualifying after being selected for a Directors Notes premiere and was selected for the North East International film festival, as well as for an Omeleto online screening.
What also draws me to film-making is experimentation. That feeling of ‘how the hell do we pull that off’. The Last Jackolantern presented that challenge constantly. How do we tell a story from the perspective of a homeless pumpkin on the street? How do we do a POV when it’s rolling through the streets of London? Well for the latter, I had to invent something completely from scratch: a spoke attached to two wheels with a mount and a go pro attached to create a truly world-spinning-around effect that I had put together with a mechanic. When it worked in his garage, it was a eureka moment. Another scene that demanded the impossible, was to create an abyss sequence with our camera travelling past different floating pumpkins as we go back in time to Halloween. I collaborated with Film.London and using their robotic BOLT arm, we shot each pumpkin for real and programmed the camera’s movement. We then stitched the whole sequence to together in post- which is brought to life in this teaser film: https://vimeo.com/762935385
Every shoot is my film school. And I’m looking forward to what’s next.
Festival award wins: ‘Best Director of a short’ at the Love and Hope film festival Barcelona (The Last Jackolantern 2023), ‘Best International Short Film’ at the Tennessee International Independent Film festival (The Last Jackolantern 2023), ‘Best long form short’ at the Skiptown International Film Film Festival- LA (The Last Jackolantern 2022), ‘Best foreign Documentary’ at the Tennessee International Film Festival (Madhero 2022), ‘Best short short’ at London Independent Film Festival (Benchmarks 2021)
Contact me on willgrave@gmail.com
insta: william_gravefilms
07807623324
UK Agent/Rep: Corin West: corin@lemonadereps.com
