Taking the Cannes Film Festival by storm this week is Tortoise in Love, a British romcom made on a shoestring budget that was crowd-sourced from the villagers of the Oxfordshire villages of Kingston Bagpuize and Southmoor. I’m interested in this because it really redefines “Home Grown”: according to the UK Telegraph, around 250 villagers invested between £20 and £10,000 to raise the £250,000 budget to pay for the cast, crew and camera equipment. The Womens’ Institute provided the catering. And now hopefully they’ll all benefits from the profits. A sweet little YouTube vid records the generation of the film.
And the film? Tortoise tells the story of Tom, a gardener in an English village’s stately home, who falls in love with Anya, the Polish au pair, but is so hopeless at wooing her that the villagers take the matter into their own hands. Coming to a cinema near you soon?