Film Selected for Film Festival

Paul Rapsey's revised film, "Desperately Seeking Samuel" (2024) has just been jury selected for inclusion in the Palma Film Festival (Mallorca, Spain). The film, with actors Paul Rapsey, Gillian Ormerod and Katie Yeoman, is not yet publicly available. It will be released locally this fall. However a short trailer to the film is now available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/9WUMF0jMnAM.

Paul performed the stage version live in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia and elsewhere late in 2022, after the release of the original version of the film earlier the same year. The earlier version previously won recognition at two independent festivals.

The stage version and the current film version followed a revised script that Paul wrote during the summer of 2022. This script added an Epilogue that was intended for a female actor. However, because no one suitable was available at the time, Paul performed this role himself.

The film was released first because of the then restrictions on live performances due to Covid-19.

Comments

One's Company Now a Film

I am not a filmmaker. But Covid has forced me to become one, to a degree. I decided to turn this stage play into a one-hour film in the "talking head" genre. I have not decided what if anything I will do with this film other than make it available to my few fans on YouTube. I am not sure exactly how to categorize this film. At 61 minutes, it seems too long to classify as a "short", and too short to classify as a "feature". As was Fiddelity , the film is made with no budget and very basic equipment. I am, essentially a story teller in the old sense. It is the words and the way I use and express them that are intended to ignite the imagination of the audience, rather than reliance on pyro-technics and the like. I was particularly touched by this comment by one viewer: " I watched One’s Company last night and loved it. A graceful insight into alone-ness. Am I not being understood….or is it I who misunderstands? Small worries looming large. The growth...

The Play is the Thing

I was cast as King Berenger in Ionesco's "Exit the King". When I first read this script through, I thought immediately that it was about the end of all things. The end of the world. My character was an everyman: the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity. And in a sense, I think, that is a correct assessment. But, even more, it is about our fear of death. And our unwillingness to accept its eventuality. Because we don’t come to terms with it, we often waste our lives. I think it was Mark Twain who wrote that “Youth is wasted on the young”. Sometimes I think life is wasted because we fail to recognize how short it will be. As my character says when informed early on in the play about his impending death, “But I know that. Of course I do. We all know it. Remind me when the time comes.” Yes. We do all know it somewhere in the recesses of our mind. But it stays there as our life unfolds. However later on, Berenger exclaims: “I fear that what is to end one day, is end...

The Hand of God

Now that I am finally settled in Nova Scotia, I have managed to find the time to work on learning another script. But this time I am learning it for myself as Samuel French has refused me, without giving a reason, a licence to perform it. I did not like this script at first, but the more I read it, the more I came to like it. As with many Alan Bennett works, the play has a dark undertone. It might be described as a black comedy. Most of Mr. Bennett's monologues have been written for women and have been performed by the grand dames of British theatre. This one is also written for a woman; but unlike some of the other monologues, the character could easily be a man. I have modified it very slightly so that I do it as a male character. The play was to be performed as a benefit for a local foodbank before Christmas. However, I did perform it for a few members of my family and a few friends at our home, which actually provided a perfect venue for this work. And people we...

One Actor - Another Show

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