By Rachel Liviero and Rachel Anderson
LITTLE KINGDOM is a short film about Oliver, a young Deaf boy, is home-schooled by his parents and is largely isolated from the outside world until he meets a girl from his neighbourhood named Kendall. Using chalk and drawings to communicate, they quickly become close friends. When Oliver’s parents face the need to move elsewhere for work, Oliver and Kendall’s new friendship faces its greatest challenge.
A Note From the Director
I’ve always been a writer who finds comfort in writing from a familiar place, drawing upon ideas and emotions that really mean something to me. LITTLE KINGDOM is a film that explores the beauty and importance of friendship and for me, this is something that I have always wanted to make a film about. As a young kid, I started off as a very shy and quiet little person who was almost too afraid to make friends. It wasn’t until I was almost a teenager that I finally started to come out of my shell and understand how important it was to connect with people.
I have always found children to be such beautiful and interesting characters in film, as we are able to see so much of ourselves in them. Whether it be from our own memories as a child or seeing another version of our adult selves right before our very eyes. I would like to think that people would be able to relate to the characters in LITTLE KINGDOM in one way or another.
Camera ($2,000)
To achieve the visual aesthetic of our film we need lenses and steadicam to truly explore our story.
Production Design & Costumes ($1,000)
Kendall is a ballerina, and a ballerina is lost without her tutu. All the cast need to be dressed and made up daily as well as the design of each location, including the chalk mural.
Meals ($2,000)
Our cast and crew need to eat! To make this film our crew needs to keep their strength and not stave.
Post-Production ($1,000)
Harddrives, DCP’s, sound mixing and colour grading. All these things add up and make the post production stage a costly venture.
The budget unfortunately does not include festival entries, to have our film shown and go places; any amount over our target will go towards funding a festival run.
Sailboats was Rachel’s graduate film from Griffith Film School and for the last year, it has been screening all over the world. Made by a team almost identical to the filmmakers behind Little Kingdom, The film was a story that came from a very honest and meaningful place. Based on Rachel’s own nephew and older sister, Sailboats follows Von, a young mother who struggles to raise her son Jackson, who is affected by high-functioning autism. Facing social problems at school and challenged by his own disability, Jackson loses his self-esteem and ambition, abandoning his favourite passion: sketching. Von and her husband must put aside their own mounting financial and personal issues to give Jackson the strength and inspiration to pick up his pencil again.
Check out our film:
It is our aim to share our film with as many people as possible and LITTLE KINGDOM represents a wonderful array of positive themes that will help us on our way through the festival circuit. With a strong story about friendship and family that communicates a powerful message for children with a disability, our film has great potential to appeal to film festivals and audiences around the world. Friendship is universal. With a strong, female director/ producer team, LITTLE KINGDOM also stands for many positive ideas about women in filmmaking which is a fantastic notion behind many film festivals. We believe that our film has a great ability to reach many screens across the globe, however without the funding we are unable to make this goal a reality.
Team Rachel, the two Griffith graduates have teamed up again to work on a new venture.
Rachel Anderson – DIrector
Rachel was always the girl with the camcorder at school so it was only natural for her to grow up and become a writer and director. Starting her filmmaking path at Griffith Film School, it didn’t take long for her to get a couple of short films under her belt. Rachel has a great passion for sharing stories that might melt your heart or simply bring a smile to your face. LITTLE KINGDOM will be Rachel’s third short film and she is so excited for her words to come off the page once again.
Rachel Liviero – Producer
Having a strong background in film production stemming from her degree in Film and Screen Media, Rachel pursued her love of cinema history and theory completing her honours year. In the time since she has worked at the Gallery of Modern Art Cinematheque and has gone on to become a film history tutor at tertiary level. Though her focus thus far has been academic, her passion for LITTLE KINGDOM’s script has lead her back to film production. Undertaking her first full producing role she is excited to bring this film to the screen.