Film Of the Fortnight

Film of the Fortnight: A Complicated Way to Live.

Live Action Narrative | UK

Why Lift-Off Programmed this Film:
Momentum is key to filmmakers finding their voice and their brand. In our experience it’s almost impossible for a filmmaker to find their style from their first or second film. HartHunter Productions started with Lift-Off many years ago with their debut short: Leonard – a film with very clear influences and a brave style that leaned heavily on Neo-French Extremism. We were instantly drawn to the work of HartHunter, we wanted more and were weren’t let down. To date Lift-Off has screened four films from the Liverpool based production company with each film bringing something new to their unique style, but still staying close to their excellent branding. A Complicated Way to Live is their first public funded film, and the third short by the multi-Lift-Off Award winning and Officially Selected outfit HartHunter Productions. A firm member of the Lift-Off Family.

Our Global Audiences Responses:
We have screened a Complicated Way to Live in London, Liverpool, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Amsterdam. The filmmaking insiders love the work, but it is without its division as it challenges an audiences idea of mental health and how our society copes with it.

A Complicated Way to Live tells the story of a man falling off of the rusted-ring of society. A man locked inside a cranial cobweb, stricken with grief, and let down by a social service the nation should hang their heads in shame over.

Expertly acted by the actor Rob Jarvis (known for Hustle, Toast), and very well drawn by the filmmaker Ged Hunter (HartHunter Productions : Leonard, Adam), the characters path of immense and vulnerable self destruction builds to a point of total internal-noise and despair, only to then be silenced by an extreme act of release, leaning to the poetic tragedies of 9/11’s The Falling Man, or the powerful image of the man on the beach of Khao Lak, during the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.

The impending death looms, but once taken the character is given his ultimate freedom.

A Complicated Way to Live - still

Brilliant Art Direction and a truly wonderful ensemble cast. The team has created a really powerful piece which packs no punches in delivering it’s ultimate message that society has a daily obligation to those in major need of care.

This film won London Lift-Off Film Festival back in 2014, where it screened in front of two packed out audiences between The Exhibit Cinema in Balham and the Soho Hotel in Central London. Since then the film has screened all over the world with us, and we are now proud to offer it as part of our on-demand distribution initiative.

HartHunter Productions have to-date screened three films with the Lift-Off Network, and we’ve been proud to show their work to countless of shocked and ultimately inquisitive audiences around the world.

collection header on vimeo

A Complicated Way to Live is available to watch now as part of the…
Lift-Off Film Festival Collection | Best of 2010-15 via Vimeo On-Demand.
Use the promo code Vimeo25 – watch A Complicated Way to Live and a whole host of other Lift-Off award winning short films now… Click here.