Private Project

Love Is Real

After a breakup, an unusual young couple try to reconnect with society, confronting the tangled nature of sex, power, and alienation.

  • Albert Bullock
    Director
    Destroyer
  • Albert Bullock
    Writer
  • Teena Dernaika
    Producer
    How the World Is Going to End
  • Albert Bullock
    Producer
  • Zak Nathan
    Producer
    Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge
  • Cathy Sole
    Key Cast
    "Aoife"
    Haunted
  • Warrick Simon
    Key Cast
    "Mark"
    Fighter
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Romance, Thriller, Drama
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes 1 second
  • Completion Date:
    January 30, 2025
  • 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's Notes

    United Kingdom
    September 9, 2025
    International Premiere
  • Folkestone Film Festival
    Folkestone, Kent
    United Kingdom
    November 3, 2025
    Winner for Best Performance
  • International Film Gala London
    London
    United Kingdom
    November 17, 2025
Director Biography - Albert Bullock

Albert Bullock is an English filmmaker born and raised in London. His filmography thus far has explored themes of alienation, twisted relationships and power dynamics.

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Director Statement

Love Is Real is, hopefully, about discovering what love truly is. I hope the audience finds empathy with these two characters—amid their toxicity, alienation, lies, and deviance—and can identify an essential overlap with their own concept of what it means to love.

It premiered on Directors Notes’ YouTube channel and drew nearly 900,000 views in under a week before YouTube pulled it down for “sexual content.” The takedown didn’t surprise us. The film challenges boundaries, and its swift rise made clear that audiences are hungry for precisely this kind of risk-taking work.