Director's statement:
‘Spree’ is fundamentally a story about systems, and how valuation and control work to enable those at the top no matter what system is in place. For the most part across the world we subscribe to a capitalist order, whose uglier aspects become apparent when it threatens to uproot people from their communities after extracting all perceived value from them. So what happens if people resist by creating another system within this system - one that breaks several laws imposed by the first system, but promises to preserve the life and neighbourhood that its people depend on. Which one would you enter into a contract with? How desperate might you be to escape the former that you throw your weight behind the other, mostly in the hope of delivering change? And what happens when that change fails to materialise, and the rules of the old order reinvent themselves - only this time with no legal safeguard to protect you? I want to be able to tap into the populism and urban division in contemporary culture regarding issues like capitalism, gentrification and landlord feudalism while also taking the next logical step and asking: “What should come after?” At a time when people often stress that legality is not a guide for morality, I want to explore the consequences of this when taken to its full extent. What emerges in urban neighbourhoods when locals decide the status quo no longer serves them, and a newer, unregulated order emerges with promises that might just be too good to be true? All this is hinted towards the film’s climax, which I’m looking to build upon in a feature-length film with the right backing and proof of concept that I hope a short film can provide. At the heart of it, I want to tell the tale of two cities - sometimes divided only by a road, like that in the film. On one side, those with wealth dictate the order that affects everyone; on the other, crime and privation flourish as a result, coming back to plague the opposing half. At its heart, the film is an exploration of how we are all connected, for better or worse, and people will respond to the systems that ensconce us no matter their place within it.
