Poppy O’Hagan and her father, Nicholas “Nick” O’Hagan (The Great, The Serpent Queen, The Good Liar), want their Giant Films to surprise cinema audiences and make a splash, on- and off-screen. Think of England, writer-director Richard Hawkins’ first film since his 2004 directorial debut Everything, which world premieres on Friday in the main competition of the 29th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), marks its official debut on the festival scene.
And how is this logline as a teaser? “In a war situation, even making porn films may be a task of national importance.” After all, inspired by talk about governments experimenting with how sexual appetite affects soldiers’ willingness to fight, Think of England explores the boundaries of generally accepted behavior and how these boundaries can shift.
The movie takes us back to World War II and a time before the Allies’ Normandy landings. A motley crew of six people is dropped off on an uninhabited island with a secret mission – to make pornographic films to help the government boost the fighting morale of the boys on the frontlines. Five of the six have relevant experience and motivation to participate, but the male star doesn’t.
“In anticipation of the Allied invasion of France, two British film projects are commissioned at the very highest level,” reads a synopsis for the movie. “On one, Churchill himself insists that Laurence Olivier immediately embark upon a lavish production of Shakespeare’s Henry V, securing him a state-of-the-art, 3-strip Technicolor camera and all of the available film stock . . . This is the story of the other.”
Think of England is an exploration of social norms, as well as cinema and filmmaking itself. Written by Hawkins and Geoffrey Freeman, directed by Hawkins, and produced by the O’Hagans, it stars Jack Bandeira, Natalie Quarry, John McCrea, Ronni Ancona, Ben Bela Böhm, Ollie Maddigan, and Oscar Hoppe.
Ahead of the premiere of Think of England, THR talked to Poppy and Nick O’Hagan about the movie, Giant Films’ vision and goals, and why indie film may be “done.”
The O’Hagans’ career paths have aligned after Poppy, who has a degree in French and Italian, gained experience working as a cast assistant on FX’s Atlanta and producing such shorts as Ned Caderni’s mockumentary This Film Is Not Yet Titled and Ben Daly’s The Fireplace. She first moved into production at Jeremy Thomas’ Recorded Picture Company, where she has worked on such projects as Jan Komasa’s Good Boy.
‘Think of England,’ courtesy of Vianney Le Caer
Courtesy of Vianney Le Caer
“As an aspiring producer, I wanted to get my teeth into feature-length films and something that was really mine,” she tells THR. “On the other side, Dad was getting quite worn out and jaded by working on TV shows and big-budget stuff. So it was the right moment to dedicate time to making something completely independently.”
Giant Films’ eyes are firmly set on “really brave and bold original films,” Poppy explains. “We don’t want to tell filmmakers, ‘you can’t do that’ or ‘maybe you shouldn’t do that.’ We want them to be really able to go for it as honestly as possible. Because you don’t want to be muddied by politics or what Think of England talks about, which is social norms and what’s socially acceptable. And we hope it will be the first of many films. They’re not all going to be period films or talking about the moral boundaries of what we think is acceptable to see on screen. But Giant Films is about protecting filmmaking as an art.”
Hawkins fits well into this fearless auteur focus. “I met Richard 20 years ago, after he made his first feature, which he was BAFTA-nominated for,” recalls Nick. “He called me at the end of a massive studio TV series in Spain. And he said, ‘I’ve got something.’ And I said, ‘Thank God.’ And that was Think of England.”
Beyond enabling bold auteur cinema, Giant Films also wants to innovate business and distribution models. “Our intention is to actually make it possible for more smaller-budget films to be made,” he tells THR. “So we’re going to help people make them, because we have got the experience of how to avoid the pitfalls. Think of England had a very small budget and was shot very quickly,” namely in 21 days.
The focus on audacious fare and different models fit well together. “Giant Films is about protecting filmmakers who have a unique vision and to not conforming them into this much more flattened out version of their vision, just because that’s what’s easier to sell to streamers or whoever is buying,” Poppy highlights.
“We’re looking at new ways of getting films out to the audience and having a long-tail theatrical experience,” continues Nick. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that films get shown for weeks and weeks, although that would be great. We’re trying to bring the window back, and we’re trying to get filmmakers to hold on. But it might mean that a film gets shown initially for a few weeks and that the filmmaker then does a tour, possibly a tour every year as they’re making their next film. I envision it just like a rock band or a musician goes on tour, maybe a year after [an album release]. Because by the very nature of an indie movie, it won’t have been seen by many people. You can just keep showing it. You don’t just dump it off to a streamer.”
‘Think of England,’ courtesy of Vianney Le Caer
Courtesy of Vianney Le Caer
Or as Poppy says: “We want to partner with people, instead of just handing the film over. Obviously, that takes a lot of balls because you need to have confidence that you can make something good out of your film. We want to be leading the way on that and inspiring other filmmakers to not just hand over their film to an aggregator. You spend so long making it, and the idea of just handing it over to be at the bottom of the pile of some bigger company just doesn’t sit well with me.”
That requires redefining success in the streaming age and helping to present films as events and experiences. “Is success your film being sold to a big company that then might just pop it straight on a [streaming platform] and that’s it?” she says. “Or is success having a U.K. tour that is a lot of work, but you’re present and with the audiences and getting it seen, and you have the control to do that?”
All this is at the core of the O’Hagans’ “Made for Cinema” movement, which focuses on cinemas, celebration, community, and celebration. “The idea is to build and share a network of cinemas and that toolkit with any independent filmmakers, including with those who are coming from another country,” says Poppy.
Father Nick sees the U.K. cinema landscape as being made for this. “There are many rep cinemas that have their own audience and have their own community, and often they will have filmmakers within that community,” he explains. “So we’re trying to say to people, ‘You don’t have to give up on your film. There is a long tail that you can have, and it might show once a month somewhere and generate conversation.”
The Made for Cinema movement says it “supports and advocates for non-dependent filmmakers to get their work released theatrically across an extended window, connecting with audiences through events and stimulating conversation and community around provocative and ambitiously authored cinema.” It also supports filmmakers “with the creation of new exhibition strategies and networks that allow their films to be shown regularly, well after the first theatrical window – long-tail distribution.”
Nick and Poppy O’Hagan
Big players may have a leg up in terms of market power, but Giant Films wants to position itself as an alternative. That all makes “Made for Cinema” close to the non-dependent, or NonDē, movement championed by Ted Hope and others in the U.S. “It’s about creating a new journey for a film, because for indie films now, it often feels the goal is simply to sell to A24 or to Netflix,” Poppy explains. “To call an A24 film independent doesn’t really line up with our level of independence. So, it’s about creating a new category of film and building a community and not having these gatekeepers.”
That also includes various financing and other organizations. “We wanted to choose the right actors for Think of England,” says Nick. “That’s the freedom we’re hoping we can get in all our films, so that they are not being driven by certain institutions and bodies that say, ‘Oh, we need this person or that person.’”
Speaking of people, Poppy also sees part of her role as a producer as being there for the cast and crew. Quarry, for example, had to prepare for a nude scene in Think of England, and her connection with Poppy helped. “It was really important for me and her to have that relationship, because I’m not the director, but I am obviously in a position of power, and it was this really lovely trust that we built,” she tells THR. “When she had nerves about the nudity aspect, she would call me up and say, ‘Oh, God, I’m starting to panic.’ So, we’d talk through it because we are the same age, and I understand what a woman of her age is going to be feeling. And I respect so much that she went and did it because I feel it pays off and makes such an impact.”
So, what’s next for Giant Films? Hawkins is on board to finally bring an old labor of love to the screen. Nick recalls that when he first met the filmmaker many moons ago, “we started on a project called Most Dangerous Girl in the World, and we spent quite a few years putting it together, and nearly getting it made three times. We have always wanted to make it, and it is now one of our next films that we’re doing. It’s a fantastic script.”
But there is more in the works. “We also have a film set in Minnesota, which we’re producing with another team,” Poppy shares. “It’s from a directing duo [called Jones and made up of Max Barron and Michael Woodward] that mainly comes from advertising and short form. They made a narrative short [called Three Meetings of The Extraordinary Committee] that went to SXSW [and was in the running for a 2022 BAFTA] and was incredible.” And she tells THR: “It’s called The Trial, and it’s going to have a similar tone to the short, but not the same story.”
The duo’s first feature fits the Giant Films vision. “It’s a really interesting project that is, again, super-small in terms of budget, but ambition-wise, it’s really powerful. It is going to be slick, pacey, and just really interesting.”