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Hugh's 'swan-song' script wins hearts
Derbyshire residents are used to seeing some of the county's landmarks featuring in big and small screen productions.
Hollywood A-listers have filmed at Chatsworth and BBC period dramas have been shot at Haddon Hall.
But now some less glamorous locations are set for international exposure as parts of Bolsover and Bramley Vale provide the setting for new British film 'Summer' starring 'Full Monty' actor, Robert Carlyle.
Helen Beighton spoke to the Derbyshire writer of the film and found out about what the cast and crew made of filming in north Derbyshire...
Hugh Ellis has experienced a miracle. That is how he describes the fact that his first full length script got made into an award-winning film starring one of Britain's most respected and most successful actors, Robert Carlyle.
Despite having some success writing commercially, scripting several episodes of ITV's 'The Bill', the 43-year-old Derbyshire lad penned Summer thinking it would be his swan-song.
"It was written as a farewell to writing," said Hugh. "It's a tough world but I had wanted to write this script for about 20 years.
"Then by some miracle it got passed around between friends and ended up with the director who liked it.
"The fact it got made is a miracle."
Summer is set in a community in the former coalfields of north Derbyshire and tells the tale of two inseparable friends, Shaun and Daz.
Shaun – like Hugh – is dyslexic, but whereas Hugh got help and was able to progress in life, Shaun was let down by the educational system and got left behind.
Although not exactly biographical, the film is very much based on characters and situations that Hugh witnessed growing up in Stainsby and Bramley Vale and that people from this area will relate to.
"It's a powerful story of enduring friendship between two people," he said. "It's not an overtly political sell. It's about a man whose life is scarred by his disability, though the word 'dyslexia' is never used in the film and never shoved down your throat."
He added: "We are trying to convey a really passionate and powerful story about someone who is written-off by the system but is as bright as anyone."
Hugh, who now lives in Matlock and is a policy advisor for Friends of the Earth, took unpaid leave last summer to watch filming and "make tea" on set and says he learnt a lot about the whole film-making process.
"To watch from the distance how a performance like Robert Carlyle's is put together is extraordinary. It's one of the best of his career, perhaps the best.
"I had not written him many lines which meant he had to fill the part and convey things written down in the script but not given as dialogue. He does that amazingly," said Hugh.
Summer has already picked up a number of awards, including Best Actor at the Edinburgh International Film Festival for Robert Carlyle and Best Film and Best Director for Kenny Glenaan at the BAFTA Scotland Awards. Hugh is delighted with how it has turned out.
"I couldn't have asked for anything more," he said. "It was an outstanding cast and beyond that there's people from the local area who have never done acting before but were fantastic.
"It was a very powerful experience to have it filmed where some of the story had been experienced. It was very difficult but gave the film an added sense of place."
Hugh has started working on his next film 'Red Sail' with Kenny Glenaan but hopes that 'Summer' will be well received by cinema audiences.
"I think the film turns your guts inside out. I hope people are entertained but at the same time think about what we are trying to achieve," he said.
"Some people won't like it because it gives an image of Derbyshire that some people will think is negative but I didn't set out to do that – I just wanted to be honest."
He added: "It's fantastic and I am genuinely incredibly grateful for the effort put into making it and the people of Derbyshire who supported the film."Though more used to seeing New York skylines or London street scenes on the cinema screen, north Derbyshire residents will be able to spot some settings from closer-to-home when they watch new British film Summer.
Bolsover and Bramley Vale make up the main backdrop to the film, meaning local viewers can have fun spotting the streets of the Castle Estate, recognising houses which appear as the characters' homes and pointing out familiar features of the landscape of the former coal mining community.
Cast and crew members were seen roaming the streets during filming last summer – and Robert Carlyle, who plays main character Shaun, was the star attraction.
Recalling the experience, the Full Monty star said: "Ah man, it was chaos, absolute chaos! Obviously I'm recognised around the place and people approach me, but this was en masse!
"I didn't think about it until I was getting down there, and then I realised of course that Sheffield is only ten miles away, and that's the eye of the storm for me."
For director Kenny Glenaan, the Bolsover setting works so well in the film because it is not recognisable enough to distract viewers from the storyline involving Shaun and best friend Daz.
He said: "We filmed on location in Bolsover, but it was a conscious decision not to give the film itself an explicit setting. I think that at its best the film is totally character-led, a purely emotional story.
"So the idea was to try and get a sense that it was any town that industry has upped and left, and show what happens in the aftermath of that."
'Summer' was produced by Ken Loach's Sixteen Films production company and EM Media – the Nottingham-based Regional Screen Agency for the East Midlands – invested 250,000 into its production through the European Regional Development Fund.
It is released tomorrow (Friday) and will be showing at the Showroom Cinema, in Sheffield, and the Broadway Cinema, in Nottingham.
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