Shelter

This powerful and penetrating fictional short by Writer-Director Lorna Tucker (in collaboration with Screen and Film School Brighton students and graduates and acclaimed cinematographer Seamus McGarvey) is intended to grip like a thriller, whilst exploring with intense sensitivity a side of the British class system that affects so many, and hopefully resonate with countless young lives today.

Shelter tells the story of a teenage runaway from a tough background who wakes up in a cinema in Brighton, to another day just trying to get by. Cheeky, slightly broken, but also scared and vulnerable, the story joins him as he sets out to try and get a job and find somewhere to live. As he is judged, mocked and feared, tensions rise and his outpouring of rage and aggression leads to a downward spiral. That is, until a random act of kindness has the potential to help him turn it all around.

The film was shot primarily around Brighton, with our team ensuring everything was in place to film around the city’s streets and down at the seafront.

Lorna’s ultimate objective is to produce movies that genuinely capture the complexities of human experiences, allowing the audience to vicariously experience the emotions, sounds, and sights of the characters’ world.

As with everything Lorna writes, this film is inspired by what she sees happening in the world around her and her motivation for telling this story stems from a personal understanding of where his kind of rage comes from. The internalised shame/pain of childhood trauma and embarrassment comes out as angry, violent outbursts. The kids that repel you with their gobby, angry outbursts. They are the kids that fall into gangs, get expelled from schools and end up as addicts, in prison or worse. Not only does the main character represent so many of the kids Lorna grew up with, but also from when she arrived on the streets of London as a teenager – welcomed by a group of homeless teenagers that had also either been thrown out by their mums or were also running from something/the police. This runaway is not an evil child or a waste of space; he’s resilient and, with the right help, could find his place in society.