Congratulations to Lawrie Doran, the writer of "The Prevailing Winds", a short film which has been shortlisted by Film London's London Calling scheme. The film, that will be directed by Adam Butcher and produced by Caroline Demopoulos, is about a lone hiker who searches for her sister across moorland, despite an invisible, deadly threat in the air.
London Calling offers grants of up to £4k for emerging filmmakers with storytelling experience and contains a crucial training component with guidance from industry mentors.
Lawrie was raised by Scottish parents in Manchester, studied English at Oxford University and Screenwriting at the London Film School. In the past three years he has worked as a script consultant, copywriter, script editor, script reader, and has taught scriptwriting himself.
His short films have played at festivals including Palm Springs and Rhode Island and his latest, The Prevailing Winds, also won the 2015 IdeasTap Shorts Fund. The films have covered subjects including but not limited to: cannibalism, inverted midlife crises, detectives with STIs, mysterious fog and the existential crises of psychopathic clowns.
He is currently developing a slate of feature film projects that range from drama to comedy to sci-fi. His main interest lies in playing with tone by treating comic characters seriously or showing how real people –who inevitably have a sense of humour– deal with serious situations.
This marks another success from alumni of the MA Screenwriting course, with Ben Cleary winning the Oscar for Best Live Action Short earlier this week.