Paul Andrew Williams Talks To PSFK

In 2007, Paul Andrew Williams won Young British Director of the Year for his film London to Brighton – a dark and macabre tale about an escape by a child forced into prostitution filmed with only 80,000 UK Pounds. He follows up with a dark but slightly more camp film called The Cottage – which also follows a woman’s escape – this time from kidnapping to a cottage which contains even more challenges than the two blundering kidnappers in pursuit present. The film is on general release in the UK now and will be available to watch at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here’s a the trailer:

Congratulations on getting The Cottage released and also shown at Tribeca Film Festival. We’ve seen the trailer and it’s rather mental. What’s your film about?

It is about two brothers who kidnap the step daughter of a gangland boss who turns out to be a nightmare. Her step brother arrives and everything goes a bit pear shaped. They all end up on a farm where things take a turn for a worse and people get killed.

How does it compare with the rest of the crop of current British film?

As for the rest of the british films of the moment. Some good, some bad, all different.

It must have been about five years since you came into the office we worked in and told me and Ben that you just wrote a feature film over the weekend. That was the first draft of the Cottage. A script in a weekend! In the five years it’s taken to get from that draft to the screen what changes have you seen take place in the movie industry?

It changed a bit during development and we shot it that way, but in the edit we went fairly close to the original script. I do think there are more films being made by first time directors, which is a good thing. I just think it needs to keep going.

They say that the web and copy-and-share culture that has impacted the music industry so radically is about to do the same with the movie industry. As an emerging film maker how do you feel about the impact of these changes on your career?

As a film maker, it obviously is better if people pay for to watch the film as the film industry struggles enough as it is. As a human being, I have downloaded stuff for free before, not movies but songs, so I am not one to judge.

How could ‘free content’ help rather than hindering your career?

Maybe more people will watch it.

>Who inspires your work and how ?

There is a man I used to work with called Piers Fawkes. If I hadn’t met him. I would be making toothbrushes in a factory.

Yeah, sure….

The Cottage