BU alumni film to premiere at BFI London Film Festival

A Bournemouth University graduate is to see his film, Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg?, premiere as a part of the BFI London Film Festival.

The film, shot entirely on location in Bournemouth and Bridport, is described as a live-action children’s Whodunnit? movie where four children on a ‘boring’ summer camp holiday turn detectives when the camp’s mascot (Nutmeg) is murdered.

Tim Clague, who graduated from a Media Production course at BU in 1995, co-directed the film and said, “This is an exciting premiere for our film. We wanted to bring back British films for British kids. Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg? is a contemporary story for today’s children, but it will remind mums and dads of the kind of films they watched as youngsters and hopefully get kids off their tablets and phones and encourage them to have an adventure.  It’s not been produced by the Hollywood machine, it has been crowd funded by the British public and made as a real passion project – it epitomises our filmmaking heritage.”

The film stars Bonnie Wright, who found fame as Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter film series, and was shot and produced by the team who are all based in the Dorset area.

Clague said of using Bournemouth as his location, “I’ve not really left the area since graduating, so I’ve made the film where I’ve lived for the past 15 years.  I worked at the Lansdowne College for a spell after graduating and then have slowly built up a network of good like-minded souls who are working in the region, making their own projects. It’s a very nice area here and so, rather than move to find work, I have been drawn to the idea of getting more happening in this neck of woods.”

The film was worked on by a number of people with links to Bournemouth University, as Clague explains, “The film was made with a mix of alumnus from my days, who are now very experienced people, and also recent graduates who were looking for experience fresh from Uni. Annie East, who works at BU, was a big part of the film. Danny Stack, my co-director, mentors scriptwriters currently. Titas Petrikis, the composer, has just become a PhD in music at BU and our main editor, Fiorella Santaniello had just finished her MA at BU when we started production.”

Tim was also on hand to offer advice to students who would like to follow his footsteps into the film industry on completion of their degrees, saying, “You can make a career wherever you want these days. It can be harder and take more time, but it is an option, especially with the BBC tending to move out of the capital anyway. Full time, salaried positions have almost totally gone across the business - so go your own way, and make what you want to make.”

Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg? will be screening at the Haymarket Cinema, 12.15pm on Saturday 10th October.  Tickets can be purchased from the BFI Film Festival website: www.bfi.org.uk/lff