The Hope Rooms

Short Film - 2016
Production Company: Bill Kenwright Films
Director: Sam Yates
Role: Production Designer

IMDb

WINNER Grand Prize Future Filmmaker Award (Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival, 2016)

Estranged father Eamonn (Ciarán Hinds), and his son, Sean (Andrew Scott), meet up after 15 years in a cafe in London. Under the gaze of waitress Ileana (Agnieszka Grochowska), Eamonn seeks forgiveness for his absence in Sean’s life. But past hurts are difficult to overcome, and what begins with hope ends in a wounding transaction.

The Hope Rooms explores a range of complex and layered emotional subject matter such as fatherhood, faith, forgiveness & loneliness.
Considerable work was carried out on our locations to ensure we could ascertain maximum control over our environments;  We restricted ourselves to a very limited cold colour palette complementing with glass, stucco and mottled brass textures to further convey our protagonists' inner emotional states. I wanted our set decor to carry weight and history and say as much about the character's internal state of mind; combining old heavyset family portraits and paintings to evoke a sense of melancholy from a grander past; old happy memories.  Kitcsh souvenirs, ornaments and trophies, vernacular furnishings and hand props to further accent the film's nostalgia.