Humanity has stopped listening, and is stripping the Earth bare. Widow Clara is tending her orchard, unaware that her rotting fruit carry the first wave of mutated spores.
Ambitious single mother Eve, is close to a breakthrough at the GM laboratories, that will unwittingly escalate our genetic breakdown.
While Clara is babysitting her grandson she is infected, triggering her bodies systematic breakdown. He watches terrified as a new species of human evolves.
The Earth has found a way to fight back. Humans will no longer be the dominate race. Nature will reclaim the earth, and our mutated genes will help secure our fate.
CAST LIST:
Eve Phillips: Anne McMaster
Narration: Carina Cojeen
James Phillips: Lee-Orr Orbach
Clara Phillips: Amber Copeland
I was brought up in South Wales, the land of storytellers. I always loved art and drama, but didn’t take to the stage until my late 20’s. 2011 I began my BA in Acting at Bath Spa University, graduating in 2014. Over the last couple of years, I have appeared in both film and TV series including Shakespeare & Hatherway, Casualty and Poldark, and performed in “Backstories” a musical at The Royal Albert Hall.
I set up a production company in 2017 Daydreams Productions Ltd, and have now produced a number of short films, and directed 5 commercials in the summer 0f 2018. Screenwriting has come as a new joy to me, co-writing a feature film DIVISION9 which is in development and just won BEST SCREEN PLAY at the FOCUS INTERNATIONAL FILM AWARDS 2018. So this is my first short film screenplay and I am absolutely over the moon to have had it selected in the BEST SHORT FILM SCREENPLAY category in LONDON LIFT-OFF FILM FESTIVAL. 2019 looks to be a busy year, working on a Feature Film, a Short film and all going to plan graduating from DMU with my MA in International Film Production.
The story of The Orchard, had been rattling around in my head for a couple of months. The idea came to me after reading an article in a medical magazine about “Zombie Flies” and it struck a cord with me. It seemed that all I was witnessing on the media was disaster after disaster. Terrible floods, each quakes, title waves and famines. Then I happen to watch a talk by Sir David Attenborough about the over population of the world, and how we could not carry one like this. Then the idea came to me that we had as a world population just stopped listening to the Earth, and what if this was the tipping point? So The Orchard came to life, as it has so much base truth in it, I think it strikes a cord with what we really fear.
A Film Freeway Preferred Festival:
****
Producer/Director: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com
Festival Moderators: Kierston Drier, Shepsut Wilson
Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne
Editors: Kimberly Villarruel, Kyle Drier, John Johnson
Festival Directors: Mary Cox, Rachel Elder, Natasha Levy
Camera Operators: Hugh Fraser, Andy Camp, Aser Santos Jr., Zack Arch
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