Dolls Can't Cry

LARA BELMONT

This is the story of woman's struggle for her sanity and her love for her child. FAITH stays locked in her flat, petrified to go out, with her moody, controlling boyfriend MANCE. She dreams of the day she can have her daughter back but she has lost all sense of reality. The only world that seems safe for her is the dollhouse that she played with as child.

NELL, now 7, has been brought up by Faith's sister, ERIS. Facing the big 40, Eris has arranged for the child to be adopted to pursue what she sees as her last chance of love. Nobody, especially Mance, wants a rape child.

Pregnant with Mance's baby, Faith has to prove she can be a mother to Nell if she is to go through with the birth. The only way is for her to take Nell into to her fantasy world of the dolls but, as reality creeps in, this 'happy place' starts to reveal itself as a thin veil over her terrifying past.

As her boyfriend and sister turn increasingly against her, and Nell feels once more betrayed, Faith is left to face the thing that she fears most — herself.

EDEN NATHENSON

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BARBARA JOSLYN

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DAVID K WHITING

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Click dolls to find more about them

Your dolls

The production team on Dolls Can't Cry all fell in love with BJDs and we've set up a special blog where we can share pictures, videos, doll tips and stories. This video by Prowlcat on YouTube couldn't say it better.

We want there to be tons of BJD videos too, along with all your doll news, photos, and links.

We'll feature a selection on the main
filmsite as well as the DOLL BLOG. The doll owners with the best videos and pictures, as voted by you, will be invited along with their dolls to the premiere of the film when it's released, along with a DVD containing exclusive footage and doll pics.

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Aleksandra Czenczek

Director
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Tomek Borkowski

Director of Photography
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Annalisa Andriani

Production Designer
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David Beaumont

Lighting Director
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Dave Sohanpal

Sound Recordist
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Tanya Barlow

Hair and Make-up Artist
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Teresa Pocas

Costume Designer
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Aneta Nowicka

Stills Photographer
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Taylor and Harlow

Modelmakers
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Nico Metten

Sound Designer
Website

Marcin Erol

Editor
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Jordan Gilour

Composer
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Rob Angol

Storyboard & 3D Artist
Website

Karolina Ciesielska

Production Assistant

Eleanor Odurny

Runner
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Marek Stawicki

Painter
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DIRECTOR
ALEKSANDRA CZENCZEK

With three award-winning shorts to her credit, this is Aleksandra's debut as a feature director. Along with co-writing and developing the script with the producer, she spent almost nine months workshopping the roles with the cast of mostly method actors before letting the camera roll. She sees her whole world through a lens, even when she sleeps, and is an accomplished photographer as well as a director.

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DoP
TOMEK BORKOWSKI

Tomek Borkowski worked as cinematographer on the documentaries Ocean (dir. Irena Jerzy Morawscy, 2009) and Kapitan Zaruski (dir. S. Rogowski, 2008). He has shot reportages from all over the world for Discovery, History Channel, HBO, TVN, TVP and others, along with a host of TV commercials. He also collaborated with Slaowmir Idziak (Black Hawk Down, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) in the making his training films for young cinematographers. Tomek is currently completing his MA in cinematography at Lodz Film School.

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PRODUCTION DESIGNER
ANNALISA ANDRIANI

Annalisa's unique vision and mastery over a tight budget brought the strange and distorted world as seen through Faith's eyes to reality.

Since graduating with a BA in Set Design and an MA in Show Management from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, she has worked extensively on film and theatre productions in Italy and the UK. Dolls Can't Cry is her third feature film.

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LIGHTING DIRECTOR
DAVID BEAUMONT

David has worked on over 30 feature films, including Philip Pullman's The Butterfly Tattoo, and nearly 100 shorts in a variety of roles ranging from lighting director, cinematographer, producer to humble gaffer. You only have to check out the testimonials on his website to bear witness to his hard graft and boundless energy. David is currently working on his own comedy horror movie, Sardines, as producer and director.

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SOUND RECORDIST
DAVE SOHANPAL

Dave's genuis at keeping a one line joke running for days maintained the spirits of the entire crew through their bleakest hours. His sound credits on imdb run to nearly 50 features, TV dramas and shorts, including Sisterhood, Bomber, Kingsland 1: the Dreaming Years, and the ITV detective series, Foyle's War.

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HAIR AND MAKE-UP ARTIST
TANYA BARLOW

After graduating in Theatre Studies in New Zealand, Tanya trained at London's world famous Greasepaint school. Previous feature credits include The Honeymooner, Reuniting the Rubens, The Flirting Club, and The Sword, the Wand and the Stone. Tanya also designed the hair and make-up for the Tekken 6 promo, the 188bet.com viral with Terry Venables, and the industry teaser for Slingers, amongst others. Her work in the theatre includes make-up for Megan Mullally (Karen in Will and Grace) and the Supreme Music Program in London's Westend.

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COSTUME DESIGNER
TERESA POCAS

Teresa developed a passion for costumes and design while starting in the theatre as an actress. Working as costume maker and wardrobe assistant for several theatre companies in her native Lisbon, she went on to become head of costume at the circus school. After moving to London in 2004, she graduated in Costume Design at the Wimbledon College of Arts and has subsequently worked on film, theatre, and dance projects, including the London Children's Ballet production of Jane Eyre and the Olympic Torch performance by East London Dance.

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STILLS PHOTOGRAPHER
ANETA NOWICKA

Aneta is a postgraduate in photojournalism and works as television reporter as well as being an accomplished international photographer. She has been taking pictures ever since she can remember and, for a short time, was even a member of the London paparazzi.

Based in Warsaw, Aneta is currently working on series of photographic projects alongside her television career.

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MODELMAKERS
TAYLOR AND HARLOW

Dave Taylor and Phil Harlow run their own modelmaking studio in Essex. Working with visuals from the Production Designer, they quickly converted them into technical drawings and brought us a carboard prototype. From there, it was a short step to the finished model and the furnishings for the human-sized dollhouse set. Between them, they have over fifteen years experience of making models for film, TV, theatre, architects, and exhibitions. One of their works, a giant landscape model of Ghana, is on permanent display in Accra, the nation's capital.

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SOUND DESIGNER
NICO METTEN

Nico's philosophy is that good sound design is when the audience does not realize that they are manipulated by sound, rather than packing the soundtrack with big exciting effects. In the few years since getting his MA in Soundtrack Production and Sound Design for the Screen from Bournemouth University, he has worked on a host of short films, documentaries, TV pilots and music productions. Dolls Can't Cry is his third feature length drama production.

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EDITOR
MARCIN EROL

Marcin was born in the year when the first men stood on the moon and the most important festival happened in Woodstock. Both events seemed to determine his life - he is rock man and a big fan SF movies. After graduating at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, he decided to follow the family tradition of working in theatre and film, and got involved in the art of 10th Muse. He�s been editing films, videoclips, adverts and TV programmes since 1996 and has worked across all genres. The ony area he hasn�t worked in is 3D, but he says it's only a matter of time.

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COMPOSER
JORDAN GILMOUR

After gaining a reputation as a freelance musician in his home town of Adelaide, Jordan joined the Australian theatre company When Sounds Meet Colour as producer, composer and musician. In 2010, he brought 'Stories of a Stranger' to the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a series of shows that he composed, scripted and performed in alongside international musicians. Educated in jazz, blues, funk, latin, rock, pop and classical, Jordan also teaches music and currently assesses students from the Banana Row Music School in Edinburgh for admissions to prestigious Drum Tech Music School in London.

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STORYBOARD AND 3D ARTIST
ROB ANGOL

Robert Angol is a 3D creature artist with background in concept art and storyboarding. He has worked in 3D for over 10 years and prior to this was working in illustration and photography. He has worked in the broadcast, architectural visualisation, medical and print sectors of 3D and is now focusing on production for film. His interests include photography, sculpture, painting and literature, he is also a keen film buff and spends most of his spare time either writing, sculpting or watching something cinematic.

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Credits

director
Aleksandra Czenczek

director of photography
Tomek Borkowski

production designer
Annalisa Andriani

lighting director
David Beaumont

sound recordist
Dave Sohanpal

hair and make-up designer
Tanya Barlow

costume designer
Teresa Pocas

production assistant
Karolina Ciesielka

sound recordist (exteriors)
Julia Thompson

editor
Marcin Erol

composer
Jordan Gilmour

sound designer
Nico Metten

modelmakers
Dave Taylor
Phil Harlow

stills photographer
Aneta Nowicka

storyboard & 3D artist
Rob Angol

runners
Eleanor Odurny
Chris

painter
Marek Stawicki

sound assistant
Kryzstof Ziolkowski

caterer
Veronica Harris

screenplay
Alistair Ayres
Aleksandra Czenczek

producer
Alistair Ayres

A ModALFisH PRODUCTION

Production notes

We all know that feeling when there's things we can't just face. We hide away, we pretend they don't exist. You probably know somebody who never opens their letters because they fear bad news or bills they can't pay. Some drink or take drugs to block out their past. Others escape to a fantasy world where bad things don't really exist. This happened to Faith.

Throughout the many rewrites of the script, the set design, hair and make-up, and the costumes, we aim to picture the world of woman who can't accept her past, present or future. All that holds her together is a blind belief in a happy world, just like her childhood dollhouse.

This a not a world she can share. As she brings her daughter closer, we see it crumble as reality pounds mercilessly at the door.

The end result is neither fantasy nor realism, it is tale from the world of illusion in which we all spend our daily lives.

Interview with the director

— Your first feature as director. A film about a rape victim? Why?

A: What I find both fascinating and frightening is the mind's ability to completely shut out painful events from the past and replace them with a happy make-believe world. Most frightening of all is when the fantasy starts to fracture as the truth fights to get out. This, in essence, is the story of ‘Dolls Can’t Cry’. Faith, a rape victim in denial, escapes into her dollhouse fantasy world, a place where bad things never happen and where she can be a mother to the daughter she abandoned to be cared for by her sister. When her safe world is threatened by the girl's imminent adoption, the dollhouse slowly reveals itself as thin veil covering her sinister past as she desperately tries to hold on to it.

Since we started writing this story, I’ve been intrigued by the complexity of Faith’s character and the endless possibilities of exploring it. She carries so many contradictions that are so beautifully portrayed by Lara Belmont’s performance. It’s her transformation that inspired me the most. She’s in fact a very courageous and strong woman. At the beginning she appears a powerless victim. Her life is a nightmare, she was raped, lives in an abusive, co-dependent relation, carries guilt and shame for abandoning her daughter, her sister is against her and she's trapped in her flat by her agoraphobia. With all that it's not difficult to appear insane and we don't really know how on earth she could get better. But soon we realize that everything is in her hands because she has child-like courage and power of belief.

— It's not what I'd call social realism. How would you define the genre?

A: If you want me to put a label on it, I would call it a dark psychological drama with elements of fantasy.

— You worked a lot with the actors before shooting. Did it pay off?

A: It did pay off a lot. The rehearsals let us explore the scope of intensity and different paces that the scenes could be played with, so I had a pretty good vision of the dramatic flow before shooting. I also learned how to direct them. I got to know more about them as people, what they react to, what makes them go beyond their safety zones. There were also scenes that we deliberately didn't rehearse, the more physical scenes, and this made them so much stronger in front of the camera.

— Which is your favourite scene?

A: From reality, I like the scene when Mance spills Faith's pills, it has a good pace and growing, underlying tension. And the scene of Nell making the paper bird because of its silence. In the dollhouse, it's Girl Doll pouring tea over Sleepy Dog.

— Which was the most difficult to shoot?

A: There were a few for different reasons. Sometimes we simply didn't have enough time in the schedule. That was the case of Mance drilling the door to the spare room. We did two full takes and I think the crew didn't really believe it was enough. I remember everyone left not very happy on that day. But the scene looks very good, so maybe the tension on set even helped.

Then, technically the most difficult was breaking the dollhouse. We were all very worried that Lara would go too far and it would become dangerous for her. She was really determined to break it, so we reconstructed some of the elements of the dollhouse from softer materials. But Lara broke them in a second and we were watching with bated breath as wrenched off the wooden doors. Everyone was impressed by her strength.

— Where did you shoot the movie and how long did it take?

A: We shot it in two locations, the kitchen and bathroom in the rented flat and the rest of the rooms + the dollhouse we built in an industrial warehouse. Both in South London. And the shoot was scheduled for 20 days. Sundays free.

— How would you describe your style of directing?

A: Hmm... intuitive? I always try to give clear objectives to the actors, but I�m not really scared of adjusting my way of thinking according to what I see. Actually, this is the part I most enjoy as it's a journey for me as well.

— Do you see Dolls Can't Cry as essentially a woman's film? What's in it for us guys?

A: I never thought about it as a woman's film. But I think we (women) know ourselves pretty well, and like to explore ourselves even more. So the portrait of a woman's inner conflict may speak to women more than to men, as may the subjects of rape and mother-daughter-sister relationships. But with Mance's character there are issues of borders we cross in love, power, masculinity, and fatherhood that many men experience.

Above all you have a beautiful woman in the lead role to watch the whole 100min.

— Why do you think there are so few woman directors? Are there any whose work you particularly admire?

A: Why so few? Nowadays, I don't know. I don't think there's anything in directing that makes it a more male than female profession. In fact, women are far more intuitive than men, have a huge scope of emotions and conflicts within themselves, so they understand notion of drama very well.

There many good female directors whose work I respect a lot, recently it's been Andrea Arnold. Also Agnieszka Holland, Agnes Varda, and Liv Ullmann.

— What's next on the cards? Another feature?

A: Yes. Another idea has been waiting to come out for some time now. I don't want to give away too much just yet but the main character is a teenage boy, it's set mainly on the road. It will probably a bit brighter than Faith's story, but with a tragic end, and hopefully with a bigger budget.