Welsh Jamaican arms dealers, crooked cops, drug-trafficking Afghans and ruthless Russian thugs feature in a spoof gangster movie inspired by the ‘heroin scene’ in Hackney a decade ago.
Hackney’s Finest, which makes its premiere tonight and is due to hit cinemas on April 3, was written by former heroin addict turned insurance broker, Thorin Seex, and inspired by his memories living in the borough in the late 90s.
A darkly comic tale of greed and corruption, the story follows Sirus - played by Nathanael Wiseman - a courier controller come small-time drug dealer, who gets caught in an elaborate trap set by two corrupt policemen with a private vendetta against him and his motley crew.
Director Chris Bouchard, of Upper Clapton Road, said: “Thorin is a very clever guy and a funny writer, I read the script and realized I wanted to put it together, he came up with these weird and wonderful drug dealers of Hackney who are quite funny to be honest.
“Thorin used to be involved in the drugs scene and now he’s involved in insurance, he was a functional addict for a time and riding around motorbikes in London, and he’s writing about his misspent youth.”
He continued: “He’s a bit coy about who some of who the characters are based on, are but there is clearly a lot of real life and London in these characters.
“There are a couple of Carribean guys who have been living in Wales they have very interesting accents, Thorin plays off stereotypes of Welsh and Jamaica, and combining the two makes great comedy.”
This is the first feature-length movie for Mr Bouchard, whose first short film The Hunt for Gollum was a big hit on You Tube where it went viral.
“It was really exciting, film making is so much harder than it looks,” said 32-year-old Mr Bouchard, works on post-production animation at Framestore. “We spent more than three years working on this film at the same time as our main day jobs, it’s the most creatively rewarding thing I’ve ever experienced, going out there with a crew.
“It was time consuming and a big challenge but it was very exciting to go out and shoot an independent film, because we believed in the scripts and believed it had this unique quality with the characters.”
The film, made with funds raised on a Kickstarter, stars a host of established and up-and-coming British talents including Skyfall’s Enoch Frost, Arin Alldridge from The Bill, Malcolm Tomlinson from Emmerdale and Neerja Naik from Life Goes On.
For screening times see www.hackneymovie.com.
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