In 2013, Swedish writer-director Antonio Darwiche, filmed his first zero budget film starring his brother on a documentary camera. Half a dozen short films later, Darwiche had won 14 awards for his work as a filmmaker including awards for Best Short Film, Best Director, Best Writer and Best Editor. Darwiche is ready for his next challenge; a continuous, one-shot feature film.
The young filmmaker is known to have range in his creative works, having directed films that range in genres from comedy and dramas to crime and horror. His attention to detail and emotional timing through intriguing characters and stories has made him a bright star in the international film community.
More recently Darwiche wrapped filming on his new web series Typo which he developed and filmed this year with a current 2019 release. The series is a mockumentary style series that follows four filmmakers in Los Angeles and their struggles to find work in Hollywood. Darwiche describes the show as a direct insight to the personal lives of the four filmmakers that star in the show, as they play bizarre versions of themselves, told in a documentary format. The show gives the viewer a behind-the-scenes to the behind-the-scenes.
“There is relevance and heart to it, even with the riskier jokes. It all comes from us and our experiences in Los Angeles,” Darwiche laughs and explains. “The team behind the series stars two Swedes, one Brit and an Indonesian. The bizarre is the honest truth.”
Next up are two feature films that are scheduled to film back to back. The first one, The Philipsburg, is a compelling drama that explores the lives of a successful small town newspaper owner and mother, Lena Dahl, and her daughter, Sandra Dahl; who had been estranged for more than a decade. The film is set to film by summer next year with a 2020 release.
“One of my favorite films of 2017 was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I was captivated by the performances, direction, cinematography, and sound design. All the elements merged wonderfully. The story itself is “simple”. Plot is easy to navigate. But the storytelling is timeless. These are the stories I want to tell and The Phillipsburg is my Three Billboards, says Darwiche.
The second feature film Darwiche has lined up remains perhaps the most intriguing due to what the young director had to say about his approach to the project. During the winter this year, he locked his third feature film. A two-hour long non-broken, no-cheat, one-shot feature film drama titled Gloom. This form of narrative structure has been seen before in films such as Victoria (2015) and Academy-Award winning filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman (2014).
Gloom is a psychological drama that follows Carol Ann, a young mother of three. Following a horrific car accident that has left her scarred, physically and emotionally and her eldest daughter in a coma. Carol Ann has decided to abandon her family in an attempt to save them from further hurt she may cause. The film follows the mother’s final two hours with her family, as she gets ready to leave, all in one shot.
“The drama in real life isn’t the highlights and cinematic music video moments of staring out the window on a train, listening to our favorite songs. It is instead the moments after a fight with a loved one when the world is silent, or the emptiness some feel in a big crowd. In this instance it is the emotional struggle that leads up to walking away from your children in an attempt to save them; which in itself is another conversation,” explains Darwiche. “I want the audience to not only see and hear it, but instead live those final moments with Carol Ann”. Gloom is currently slated for a 2021 release.