HERE

In East Riding, Yorkshire, seventeen-year-old KADEN reluctantly takes a job at the local strawberry field over the Summer. A quiet introvert, KADEN clearly doesn’t fit in with the other farmhands, who are all older, more experienced, and treat him with contempt. It is here he encounters LUCAS, an aloof eighteen-year-old who has worked at the farm for several Summers now. Underneath his initial indifference, LUCAS hides a deeper curiosity for KADEN. Desires disentangle in this new, uninhibited, and sun-drenched environment, as the two boys tentatively begin to explore their feelings towards one another in secret, a kinship that forces them to confront their own internalised homophobia, shame, and sense of belonging.

  • Lilly Zhuang
    Director
    As Far As Our Eyes Can See
  • Pete Restrick
    Writer
  • Christian Dametto
    Producer
    Stanley Tucci - Searching For Italy
  • Fraser Patrick Kelly
    Key Cast
    "Kaden"
    Solo - A Star Wars Story
  • Cameron Dews
    Key Cast
    "Lucas"
  • Jamie Patterson
    Key Cast
    "Declan"
  • Adan Osborne
    Key Cast
    "Anthony"
  • Kieran Downes
    Key Cast
    "Callum"
  • Tim Zhuang
    Key Cast
    "Tim"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    24 minutes 16 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 3, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Lilly Zhuang

Lilly Zhuang (she/her) is a Chinese-Dutch filmmaker based in London. Her debut short film AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE premiered at the BFI Future Film Festival in 2021 where it was nominated for Best Documentary. Lilly is also a published writer/poet and photographer. Her work has been shown in Wild Court and Phi Mag, amongst other publications.

Growing up in the Netherlands as the daughter of Chinese artists, Lilly has centered her interdisciplinary creative work around the renegotiation of the diasporic nature of identity and belonging. Graduating from an MA in Film and Philosophy and finishing her filmmaking training at UCLA, she positions her creative work and responsibility at the interstices of politics and media, focussing on projects with sociopolitical and cultural value in, what she calls, our kaleidoscopic media environment.

Drawing from a strength in delicate imagery, Lilly’s work underlines the emotive powers of gestures and environment, of rhythmic and affective storytelling that roots itself in the intricacies of larger-than-life everyday scenery that fortifies the idea of humans in the midst of wider ecologies and discourses.

Her latest film AND I THOUGHT OF HOME (2024) is an experimental project centered on the notion of contingency as five creatives - strangers - and their materials are put into conversation with each other to reconceptualize the concept of identity through a deconstruction of the space of ‘home’. The film explores fragmented filmmaking and (dis)connection, pivoting around the idea of first-person plural narration.

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Director Statement

As the daughter of Chinese immigrant artists, I was confronted with the diasporic nature of identity and belonging at an early age. At the same time, my parents constantly reminded me of art as a conversation, art as a way to rethink the elements that make up our daily lives and histories.

What does it mean to have a name and claim to belong somewhere? The paradox of personal utterance is something that I’ve carried forward within my interdisciplinary creative and academic projects, and also what first drew me to ‘HERE’ and the distance between longing and belonging that the story aims to navigate.

Following the visual and affective sensibilities of films such as ‘Call Me By Your Name’, ‘Being 17’, and ‘God’s Own Country’, ‘HERE’ carries within it the tenderness and the ache of first explorations; its silences and soft whimpers. The things we cannot - or are made not to - talk about create the presence of an absence; an air of frustration that can be felt through what isn’t spoken.

In ‘HERE’, the naturalism and visual storytelling play a key role in creating an environment that emotes in the characters’ stead, a self-contained microcosm that reflects a greater whole. Having been in conversation with screenwriter Pete Restrick throughout his writing process, I have witnessed the motions the narrative has gone through, often picturing Kaden and Lucas’ time together as part of an undercurrent, hidden underneath the sheen of a seemingly beautiful summer day; a possibility, if only.