Private Project

The Journalist

In 1980s London, retired criminal Peter Bendford thinks he’s escaped his past until a dead associate surfaces in his bar. Hunted by the police and exposed by a relentless investigative journalist, Bendford faces one last interrogation that could either redeem him… or destroy him.

  • Santi Benedit
    Director
  • Santi Benedit
    Writer
  • Santi Benedit
    Producer
  • Vijaykumar Mirchandani
    Producer
    The Shadow, Andhela Ravamidhi, A Long Night, The Gift, Love My Zindagi, Asura, A Pinch of Salt, The Song of The Rifle, Raj-lost and found, Dos Bros Force, Zoe, LIV, To Be Forgotten, Coming Out with The Help Of a Time Machine, Red Rose, Stranger in the Room, The Last Jam Jar, Divide-Time To Breathe, Love Can't Be Locked Down, Paese Che Vai -When in Rome, The Process, Habaneros, Where The Streets Have No Name, They Are No Less
  • Buster Blackledge
    Producer
  • Kent Goldfinch
    Key Cast
    "Peter Bendford"
  • Sean Jhooty
    Key Cast
    "The Journalist"
  • Duane Tucker
    Key Cast
    "Detective #"
  • Josh Wells
    Key Cast
    "Detective #2"
  • Samuel Ross
    Key Cast
    "Manual Sinner"
  • Alain Ny
    Key Cast
    "Wes"
  • James Handley
    Director of Photography
  • Pree Issacs
    1st AC
  • Krill Konstantin
    Production Design
  • Ngawang Lektso
    Gaffer
  • Amelia Holland
    Hair & Make Up
  • Becky Pugh
    Hair & Make Up
  • Michael Holdbrook
    Sound
  • Owen Tucknott
    Sound
  • Daryna Sudachek
    Production Manager
  • Alexander Benoit
    Production Assistants
  • Tristan Blackledge
    Production Assistants
  • Gabriel Xavier
    Colourist
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Murder, Crime, Thriller, Invesigative, Mystery, Drama
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 31, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Santi Benedit

Santi Benedit is a Spanish independent screenwriter and director whose unconventional path into filmmaking began in the world of finance. A lifelong admirer of crime and investigative thrillers, he stepped into cinema without formal training driven purely by passion, discipline, and a storyteller’s instinct.
His debut short film, The Journalist (2024), explores the murky world of criminal journalism through the story of a retired criminal whose past resurfaces when he is accused of murder. The film reflects Benedit’s fascination with moral ambiguity, narrative manipulation, and the thin line between truth and perception.
As a writer, Santi has completed four feature screenplays and four short films. His short script Harlots Down No-Man’s Land, a hard-edged crime tale about a feisty Wisconsin hooker fleeing trouble after escaping her roadside brothel has ranked among the top discoverable projects on Coverfly, further establishing his voice in the crime and thriller genres.
Now based in London, Benedit brings an outsider’s eye to the city’s shadows, crafting character-driven stories rooted in tension, consequence, and emotional complexity. The Journalist marks his first step behind the camera, where he continues to push boundaries and follow his singular vision as a rising filmmaker.

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Director Statement

I didn’t come to filmmaking through film school or formal training, I came from the world of finance, where stories are numbers and certainty is everything. But outside the office, I grew up devouring crime cinema, investigative thrillers, and tense, morally tangled character pieces. Those films shaped me long before I ever imagined picking up a camera.
When I moved from Spain to London as a student, the city became my greatest teacher. London wasn’t the place I was born, but it was the place that taught me how to look, how to read the alleyways, the late-night conversations, the quiet corners of old pubs where secrets feel heavier than the pints. There was always a sense that the truth was just out of reach. The Journalist was born from that feeling.
Setting the story in the 1980s was a way to strip life back to its analogue marrow to a time before everything could be recorded, replayed, or fact-checked in seconds. It was a world where newsrooms were dense with smoke, where a reporter’s word could shape reality, and where bending the truth was often easier than uncovering it. That tension between what is seen, what is printed, and what is actually real is what drives this film.
At the heart of the story is a journalist who doesn’t simply chase news, he manufactures it. And opposite him stands Bendford, a man trying to outrun the shadows of his criminal past, only to learn that shadows make excellent headlines. Their collision is a study in narrative power who writes it, who owns it, and who gets swallowed by it.
As a first-time filmmaker, I had to bend rules, push limits, and learn everything the hard way. I hunted for the perfect period pub, turned my own living room into a messy newsroom, designed 1980s newspapers from scratch, and worked with actors for the first time to carve out lives defined by guilt, survival, and reinvention. Every decision was an exercise in finding not just the film’s truth, but my own voice as a storyteller.
The Journalist is my tribute to the crime thrillers that shaped me, films where truth is slippery, danger grows in the silence between lines, and whoever controls the story controls the world. I want audiences to feel the same uncertainty I felt walking through London for the first time: a sense that every corner hides a story, but never the whole of it.