International success for student film

In the future, water is a thing of the past. This is the story brought to life in the short film, Rain, which is rapidly gaining attention on the international film festival circuit.

 

Written, directed and produced by Griffith Film School students, 22-year-old Henry Boffin and 21-year-old Liam Heyen, the film follows an old man and a young boy struggling to survive in a future world where there is no water left on Earth.

 

By day they harvest what water they can from the barren landscape and by night they attempt to keep their hope kindled. The future looks bleak and as the last of their secret water supply runs dry and desperate savages start to close in the pair must face up to the fact that the rains may never come again.

 

Shot on location in Thargomindah, Western Queensland, with a cast and crew of 20, the film won the Best Short Film at the Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival earlier this year, screened at the Short Film Corner in the Festival De Cannes and was accepted in the 9th Annual HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles.

 

It will next screen at In the Woods Festival in London (31 August), Down Under Berlin (12 — 15 September), Canberra Short Film Festival (13 — 15 September), Indie Spirit Film Festival, Colorado Springs (3 October) and New York Independent Film Festival (18 — 20 October).

 

Both students moved to Brisbane to study at the Griffith Film School in their late teens, with Henry leaving his small home town in England and Liam making the move from New South Wales.

 

Henry has been writing since he was a child and credits his love of classic science fiction to turning his love to the big screen. Liam too acknowledges his early childhood exposure to film and his later exploration of acting and theatre as the motivation behind his career behind the camera.

 

View the Rain trailer or visit the official movie site.

 

Henry Boffin (L), Robert Bakken and Liam Heyen (R) at the HollyShorts Festival in Los Angeles.
Henry Boffin (L), Robert Bakken and Liam Heyen (R) at the HollyShorts Festival in Los Angeles.