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Title: SREDNI VASHTAR

Reference number: 7649

Date: 2003

Director: d. Angela M. Murray

Sponsor: BBC Scotland and Scottish Screen

Producer: Robbie Sandison

Production company: Murray Sports Marketing (UK) Ltd.

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: col

Fiction: fiction

Running time: 10.00 mins

Description: Stuck in a bleak, frozen world with only his oppressive Aunt for company, Conradin finds solace in the vicious secret which lurks at the bottom of the garden. [synopsis from Scottish Screen brochure "New Scottish Short Films 2003"]

Screened at 57th Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2003.

Tartan Shorts: A joint short film initiative funded by BBC Scotland and Scottish Screen National Lottery Fund. Three films per year commissioned for theatrical release and broadcast.

Credits: w. Angela M. Murray
based on an original idea by H. H. Munro (Saki)

The Aunt Sian Thomas
Conradin Fergus Nimmo
Doctor David Kinnaird
Conradin's Mother Susan Batchelor
Conradin's Father Steven Cassidy

p. man. Lisa Baxter
production and post production co-ordinator Sue Bunyan
p. accountant Laurence Parker
p. trainee Joanna Matthews
continuity Iain J. E. Andrew
first ass. d. Morris Milne
third ass. d. Sarah Sandison
floor runner Jo Dunphy
focus puller Richard P. Bevan
clapper loader Kate Reid
video ass. Niklas Vestberg
camera trainee Nicola Levinsky
grip Robert Etherson
boom operator Will Cooper
costume ass. Sally Campbell
costume cutter Connie Fairbairn
costume trainee Joanne Leary
gaffer Stuart Hurst
best boy Graham Walker
electrician Alan Fraser
rigger John Rhymer
art d. Andy Drummond
ass. art d. Ailean Stuart
frost effects Big Bob
construction Stephen Leadbitter, Becky Sik
p. buyer Jenni Cormack
illustrator James Lapsley
standby props Kara Ramsay, Carrie Kelleher
standby joiner Gordon Rogers
pyrotechnician Shmem Geddes
art dept. ass. Sophie Rogers, Carrie Smith. Davie Smith, Lia Trentmann, Calum MacAskill
scenic painter Jim O'Donnell
animal wrangler David Stewart
stills ph. Sue Osmond
unit nurse Catherine Kerr
chaperone Anne Rankin
casting d. Susie Parriss
colourist Norman Nisbet
inferno operator Bill Shearman
tracklayer Craig Aitchison
dubbing mixer John Cobban
composer Paul Leonard Morgan
p. designer Max Berman
make-up designer Claire McAndrews
sd. rec. Cameron Mercer
costume designer Alison Mitchell
film ed. Samantha Holgate
d. ph. Balazs Bolygo
p. exec. Annette MacMillan
exec. p. Sara Harkins, Becky Lloyd
camera equipment Panavision
grip equipment Grip House North
lighting equipment Lee Lighting
sd. equipment Hammerhead
film laboratory Todd AO Creative Services
digital intermediate Digital Film Lab., Copenhagen
laser film recording Jimmi Berger
print Soho Images

The Producers would like to thank Freddie Doda and Jan Muir, Janet and John Murray, Ian Hopkins and Gail Kennett [... et al...]

A Murray Sports Marketing (UK) Ltd. Production for BBC Scotland, Scottish Screen Lottery Funded.

© BBC MMII

Shotlist: After a colourful childhood in Burma, 12-year-old Conradin finds his world torn apart when his parents are killed and he is sent to live with his strict, Presbyterian aunt in the Scottish Highlands.

Isolated in a bleak house in the midst of a desolate, frozen landscape, Conradin finds himself unable to adjust to his aunt's harsh regime. Under such unhappy circumstances, Conradin soon becomes ill and is proclaimed to only have a few years to live.

The young boy's only connection to his past are the few trinkets and pets he keeps in the shed far away from his aunt's ordered household. It is here, fuelled by a growing hatred for his new life, that Conradin creates Sredni Vashtar – a vicious, glorious God, which is the embodiment of everything his aunt opposes.

As Conradin's obsession with his new religion grows, the distinction between himself and Sredni Vashtar begins to blur. Now he must protect his new-found God at all costs knowing that, should his aunt discover his secret, she would destroy both Conradin and Sredni Vashtar for good.

Sredni Vashtar is a gothic fairytale about life versus death, based on a short story by Edwardian writer Saki (H H Munro).

[description from BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/10_october/31/tartan_sredni_vashtar.shtml, last accessed 27/1/2010]