A modern day fairytale

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Teen stars Jack O’Connell and Holliday Grainger reunite in a ground-breaking new short film, Robot and Scarecrow.

Robot and Screcrow is a new short film created by pioneering south London director, Kibwe Tavares.

The film is a modern fairytale with a forbidden love story at its heart which explores the festival experience, having been shot on location at The Secret Garden Party. The stunning visual effects – which transformed Jack O’Connell and Holliday Grainger into a scarecrow and robot popstar respectively – have taken three years to complete.

Inspiration for the film actually came from pop star Katy Perry as director Kibwe explains:

“The inspiration actually came from a few years ago when I was due to shoot a music video with Katy Perry. I was researching Katy, watching her music videos and a documentary that followed her on tour for a year and there was a scene where Katy had just split up with Russell Brand but had to go out and perform. That idea of pop stars as commodities interested me. You see this with the robot in the film – she doesn’t have any freedom and is quite literally held back by the lifeline (power supply) that is out of her control.”

The film has been produced by Daniel Emmerson of DMC Film – the London-based production company run by Michael Fassbender and his producing partner Conor McCaughan. It was co-commissioned by Vero and The Space, and co-produced with Factory Fifteen (Tavares’ studio) and Nexus.

Robot and Scarecrow will be released on Wednesday May 31 on Vero.

About this artist

Kibwe Tavares is a director and actor, known for Jonah (2013), Robots of Brixton (2011) and Robot & Scarecrow (2017).

Robot & Scarecrow will be released on new social network Vero, which is supporting emerging directors through a production fund established with DMC Film.