An Independent Filmmaker at Warp Speed

Mark Herbert and Robin Gutch, principles of Warp Films in Sheffield, England, plan to release six low-budget genre films, all under $2 million a picture, in the next few years, Andrea Chalupa writes from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

So far they have two offerings—A Complete History of My Sexual Failures and Donkey Punch—and both beat out the 9,000 other films submitted to this year's Sundance Film Festival to be part of the line-up.

"What Warped Films wanted to do, was to figure out how to make a slate of films that could be low budget and could be close to genre films that had some substance or complexity, genre with a twist," says Angus Lamont, the lead producer for Donkey Punch. "And make them at the right price."

"It's an interesting model in the U.K., it has all the cornerstones you need to make an independent film in Britain," Lamont adds.

Funding comes from the British Film Council's New Cinema Fund, Film Four, and by two regional funds, East Midlands Fund and Screen Yorkshire. Each of Warp X's six films have guaranteed distribution in Britain.

Another feature of Warp X is that it chooses to work with new directors. Donkey Punch—a British survival thriller that cast members describe as Lord of the Flies starring a bunch of twenty-somethings on a Ferretti yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean.—is the first major feature by young filmmaker Oliver Blackburn.

Sam Horley of Lumina Films is working hard to sell Donkey Punch. Lamont said a distribution deal is in the works, although he said he could not discuss details.

A spokesperson for the film said that four buyers, including two major distributors, are in the running, but a deal isn't expected to be reached this week. Potential buyers are asking for additional screenings in Los Angeles and New York, to further test out audiences.

"Peer pressure, young kids, drugs. Na??ve acts put a spin on every character," says Julien Morris, who stars as the misguided villain. The cast just saw the film for the first time at Sundance on Tuesday night.

"I was in bits at the end," says Robert Boulter, another actor in the film. The plot follows a group of young men working on a yacht who encounter a group of young women on their holiday in Spain. A night of partying out at sea causes a fatal accident that sends them into a panic.

Rising British star Jaime Winstone, daughter of Ray Winstone of Cold Mountain and Sexy Beast, also stars as a young woman who comes undone from the accidental death of her best friend.

The next picture to come from Warp X is the thriller Hush, coming out this summer, about a man who hunts down his wife's kidnapper one stormy night during the couple's road trip.