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Northern Film School short wins awards
In the Shadow of the Mountain is a psychological thriller inspired by the current depopulation of the countryside. Filmed on location in the Catalonian Pyrenees, Spain, the film tells the story of a young couple who move to a tiny village hidden in the mountains, where the elderly community, who, desperate to preserve their community, will do everything in their power to ensure the couple stay.
Originally the project of a group of international Masters Students from our University who travelled to Malpàs in the north of Catalonia, the film won Best Film and the Audience Award at the Dirigo Film Festival in Bristol, with a runner-up prize for best supporting actress. It was also nominated for the Best Producer Award at the Underwire Festival in London.
Prior to FICCAT, the film has been screened at the Badalona Film Festival (Catalonia), Leeds International Film Festival, VGIK film festival in Moscow and the Wegiel International Student Film Festival at the University of Silesia in Poland.
Christian Steuer, MSc Sound Design graduate and sound designer on the film, said of his role: “I loved working on the film, it was a great experience and allowed me to put into practice the skills I had learnt at Leeds Beckett where I had specialised in designing sound for film; telling a story through sound.
“In order for me to make this film sound professional I didn’t want to use a lot of library sounds. My two sound recordists, Lewis Gilbert and Andrew Layfield, went on location to record the dialogues and to collect all kinds of sound effects which gave me a lot of original sound material to mix. I wanted the village to sound isolated and a bit eerie, and at some points haunted to enforce the story.”