Filming at locations outside of London is becoming ever more popular, and especially the South West. Mallory Towers for the BBC, the Salt Path starring Gillian Anderson, and Bergerac have all chosen locations in the Westcountry to film, this past summer.

Actor Joshua J Parker had a different reason to choose Looe as the set for his latest production; a homage to his home town but also to the Cornish fishing industry. 

Josh was born and bred in the town, and returned in September with a crew of 25 for four very intense days of filming. Since making his acting debut with a series of TV appearances including Grace for ITV, and Django a TV series for Sky (and a new Netflix series in the offing) he set up a production company called Pictures Paradiso with Matthew Williams, Haris Salihovic and Sophie Elizabeth-MacDonald. Together they have spearheaded two short films ‘Henry & Me’ and ‘Black Vultures over Britain’ which both received critical acclaim in their early access releases. 

The latest short film, Circle Hook, was written by Joshua and is based in the town of his childhood. It tells the story of a fisherman grandfather and grandson Samuel and Vinnie, and their struggles to survive financially but also emotionally after the death of Vinnie’s grandmother. The film though set on a single day in Spring, was shot at the end of the summer, and is an amalgamation of stories Joshua heard in his childhood, as well as a political statement. 

Josh says: “Cornish fishermen are probably the most adaptable people I've come across but there seem to be more and more fences put up and hoops they have to jump through just to earn a living, and these laws and restrictions are being imposed on them by people that don’t understand the industry and don't even understand how to run it.”

He adds: “From the very beginning, the core team agreed that it was going to have to be in Looe because it’s a film about this community if I’m honest. It’s a story about the people for the people.”

Joshua’s character in the film, Vinnie, is disabled and mute by choice; the film charts their struggles to make money while experiencing the fundamental shift in their family dynamic caused by their loss. A working class drama.

“Vinnie is married to his Cornish roots and his Cornish ideology; he’s one of those that wants to stay and fight for what he believes in, even if the way he fights through it is by silence. Silence in some ways is deafening,” said Joshua. 

All four actors in the film are from Cornwall. Samuel is played by Tim Cartwright who spent most of his formative years living in Newlyn and had a walk on part in the BBC 1970s production of Poldark. Pete Picton is from St Ives, Sue Druitt from Truro, and Joshua from Looe. 

The actors spent a lot of time trying to make the film as Cornish as possible working with its director Maddy Corner, a theatre director based in London. From accents to mannerisms, they wanted the film to feel representative and authentic. 

Maddy was hired and came on board in June. It was her first ever film shoot. She said: “Josh and I both agreed in the beginning that the film is a real love letter to Cornwall. It was important to us the whole way through. I really wanted to make sure that I chose shots that really captured the beauty.

“We got the most beautiful footage because Joshua knows it so well from growing up there, and loves it. It was very stressful, battling with tide times, windy seas, and rain but was one of the best experiences of my life,” she adds. 

Like any film schedule, theirs had sunrise and sunset times but also all the tide times with times of low and high tide. They worked closely with Looe’s Dave Spry and Dave Haines who owned two of the boats used for filming, nicknaming them ‘The Daves’. “They were brilliant,” says Maddy. “They told us about tide times, which fish were in the sea at that time. Dave Spry even stood in for one of the actors who hurt himself and went to hospital to be checked out. He’s an actor now!” 

All joking aside, Maddy is adamant: “I want the film to be watched by Cornish fishermen and for them to go, that sounds about right.”

Unlike Hollywood films with big budgets this short film is being privately funded after a depressing reception, explains Joshua. “The project almost lost steam before it really got going. Our two previous projects seemed to pick up a lot of momentum, but with this one, a lot of people weren’t really interested which was quite a hard thing to hear, especially when it’s about you and your community. So I decided to do it on my own anyway.”

Josh admits he’s the kind of person that shoots from the hip and apologises later. Maddy comes in: “When you’re doing small, independent films it’s more normal to beg, borrow and steal to get something together. It becomes a showcase for the production company and for everyone working on it. People kind of accept, they’re more passion projects.”

That passion is shared by everyone working on Circle Hook. The crew worked at massively reduced rates in order to tell the story. Josh said: “Half of the crew are Southwest based. It was a story they knew or heard through the grapevine so it was important to them.” 

The film is currently being edited in London and should be finished by Christmas with the hope that by Spring it will be ready to submit it to as many film festivals as possible including Venice, Berlin, Toronto, and even smaller venues.

Joshua said: “We have a huge contingent of South West people working on Circle Hook, but I do feel with editing, that you need to hand it over to someone you’ve worked with before because they are the lifeblood of the film. You can have great footage but if the person stringing it together doesn’t know their stuff then, it falls short.”

He adds: “I kind of feel like I’m the father of a baby. I trust Maddy and the editor, and I trust my team. I have to leave it with them and say my prayers.”

The film will hopefully make its way to Cornwall at some point, Maddy says. “I would like to invite everybody that helped us on the film. It did feel like half the town came out to support us, which is really lovely.”

They are really grateful for all the support, especially from East Looe Town Trust for providing locations for the filming. Maddy sums it up: “Across the board, everybody we met in Looe, has been the most helpful, delightful, and willing. Everyone was just so generous. 

"From what I observed I think it was also because it was someone from Looe, telling a story about Looe, which made it a bit more special. People were really receptive to the fact it was a Cornish person telling a Cornish story.”