Franklin, Underwater

How Franklin, Underwater came to Lift-Off

Emily Carlton has continuously impressed the Lift-Off judges with her quirky storylines and female-driven narratives. She first screened with Lift-Off Global Network back in 2017 with All Of Me written by Emily and produced by Seek Films, since then we have eagerly been following Emily’s growth. In 2018 Full English, Emily’s most recent film, joined us on the festival network and screened at several of the Lift-Off Festivals concluding with a Season Awards win for Best Screenplay.

Frankilin, Underwater is Emily’s next project which she has written in collaboration with Kevin Pohl. We will be taking this to the Marche with the aim of finding industry contacts who can take this project to the next level.

Logline: Franklin, Underwater is a surreal feature film about Frankie, part misanthropic queer woman, part mythological beast who kills and eats her long-lost best friend to fill the growing hole in her life.

Both writers’ connections to this story cut deeper than what’s on the page, though. And the truth that they have found in each other is the truth that they hope comes out of it - that there is queerness yet undefined, and it is okay that way. That this queerness is sanctuary.

Emily Carlton

Emily is a British Writer and Producer born and raised in London. Graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Social and Political sciences, her journalistic credits include Out There Magazine, The Times, LOVE and the Huffington Post. She now works as a screenwriter and producer with Seek Films. She has had three short film scripts produced: ALL OF ME (2017), which has played at 25 international festivals to date, THE INVADERS SONG (2018) which premiered at Palm Springs International Film Festival and FULL ENGLISH (2018) which was recently awarded ‘Best Screenplay’ at the Lift-OffSeason Awards 2018. She recently wrapped on her directorial debut, short film EXIT TO STAGE (2019) made with the support of Directors UK and ARRI, which has just been awarded the Best Director prize by the London Independent Film Awards. Emily is a co-founder of the ‘Breaking through the Lens’ event series and an active member of WIFTV and BAFTA Crew.

Kevin Pohl

Kevin is an American writer who grew up in Villa Park, Illinois. Eighteen years there led him to Chicago, where he attended Columbia College and, in 2012, graduated Valedictorian after winning the school’s Student Feature award for the screenplay, MOVING MOUNTAINS. In 2013, Kevin attended UCLA’s Professional Program in Screenwriting where he was nominated for the Nate Wilson Joie de Vivre Award — honoring the program’s best screenplay and student — for his feature BOOMERANG, which went on to win the Columbia College Written Image Festival in 2015.