Lincoln filmmakers head to Italy for Franz
midlandsmovies • January 21, 2021
Midlands Spotlight: University of Lincoln graduates head to Italy
Josh Brown is the writer-director of new film FRANZ which follows a mentally fragile writer staying at a friend’s apartment.
With the writer taking a break to undertake his first novel, he witnesses what he believes to be a murder. But with his mental state and heavy drinking, can he be sure of what he saw?
And so goes the synopsis of this new short drama which has been produced by the filmmaker as part of the Cici Film Festival.
The filmmakers are all University of Lincoln graduates and took their skills from the Midlands to shoot the short entirely on location in Castellemare del Golfo in Sicily.
And although filmed a few years ago, the director had planned to submit his drama to festivals before releasing it online.
But with the advent of the Covid pandemic, Joshua goes on to explain, “With everything being so up-in-the-air, we're flipping it! We're releasing it online for now, with the hope of a festival run later in the year”.
And the director is hoping an appreciative audience can contribute to its ongoing success.
“Please consider paying as-you-feel for seeing it. All this does is allow us to enter the film into more festivals around the world”. He then adds, “a small band of extremely talented people worked on this, which I'm massively grateful for”.
Franz follows its troubled author protagonist as he leaves rehab to retreat to his friend Pino's luxurious apartment to write a novel, but the director explains that the “peaceful retreat soon turns into a fever dream of drugs, fantasy and paranoia”.
Josh Brown is a director and videographer and an international filmmaker in both fiction and documentary. And spreading wings from the region, Josh has made films in Rome, Vietnam, Sicily & China and last year he produced a short film for the BBC, which he wrote & directed.
He describes Franz as “an exploration of the boundary between fantasy & reality and what happens when the line between the two start to blur. I wanted to make a paranoid, cinematic, location-driven film, which I hope we achieved”.
Watch the film below and support the filmmakers by donating to the film’s festival ambitions via this link: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8wbwHIbj6E
Up! (1976) Dir. Russ Meyer Well, bi-Adolf Hitler BDSM is not something (a) I thought I’d ever see 5 minutes into a movie and (b) ever expected to write in my lifetime to be fair but this spicy start is pretty standard for the work of exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer. Up! is a kind of r*pe-revenge softcore p*rn film (there’s gonna be a fair bit of self-censorship in this review so apologies in advance), the type Meyer is known for. I’d describe the plot in more detail but it’s mostly a convoluted and incoherent mess of double-crossing, murder, violence and lots and lots of humping. In short, a man called Adolph gets murdered and a woman investigates (kinda) the circumstances but as she does so, a group of locals blackmail, attack and screw each other with the murder mystery barely mentioned throughout. With so little narrative, it could be argued if it’s essentially p*rn? To be fair, not far off. It’s about extreme as you can go without simply making a s*x film. Is that a…no, it’s a belly button hole. Bookending the film (and also seen at various points throughout) is a Greek Chorus - simply a busty fully nude woman of course - who delivers dialogue like “Pummelling the scrotum with joyous supplication” and other such poeticisms. This artistic flourish is mostly pointless - the actress herself saying the words were tough to learn because it was utter nonsense. On a technical level, the editing is surprisingly well done and the 4k image is frankly fantastic. Someone somewhere must be putting together a post-modern take about the beautiful landscapes and cinematography of Meyer’s * ahem * output. But it definitely does have a kitsch artistry. It has certainly provided plenty of cinematic influence though. Elements of Tarantino grindhouse sensibilities are on show - Meyers likes bosoms as much as Quents likes feet - and there’s even a leather gimp early on. I can also see how its had an impact on Ti West X’s with a focus on sexuality and the body as well, more obviously, Anna Biller’s feminist-twist The Love Witch (2016). Suffice to say it’s not for the weak of heart. I think in this day and age you can’t go into this completely blind to its style, period and context though. It's an X-rated Carry On style that was bad taste then and it’s bad taste now. It revels in its sleaziness without a single hint of shame or apology. Simply saying 'deal with it'. The main negative though is the absence of plot - if the film can even be looked at like that - which is barely present. This is a shame as the whole thing could do with a bit more coherence rather than endless shagging. But it’s far from titillation, it’s mostly clowning - albeit a very adult version of it. More saucy than sexy. Trying to review this through modern sensibilities is almost impossible. It’s as offensive can be from the first scene through to the final credits - heck even this 4k menu is simply one of the film's many s*x scenes. But there are some progressive themes as it doesn’t shy from confronting sexual freedom, bisexuality, gay sex, BDSM and consensual exploration. There's moments of comedy thrown in and I enjoyed a frankly hilarious 5-minute monologue explaining the culprit’s intentions, which was a ludicrous way to deliver a slasher-style ending. I suppose the main thing about Up! (and Meyers’ work overall) is there’s a sort of love it or loathe it quality about the whole shebang. But it’s so unlike anything being made today - for good or bad - that it’s never anything other than unpredictably fascinating. More explicit than most Meyers films - in fact more than any film - it’s a lewd, rude and crude (s)exploration with a satirical edge and campy enjoyment bouncing from every frame. ★★★ 3 / 5 Michael Sales Severin Films releases Russ Meyers' UP! (1976) and MOTORPSYCHO (1965) on 28 April 2025 in newly restored and scanned 4k with hours of new and archival Special Features https://severinfilms.co.uk/
On the 24th of April, the Midlands Art Centre opened its doors to Gobby Flicks Productions for a night of live comedy. Proceeds were raised towards the production of new short comedy films, directed and written by women.
Ti West’s The House of the Devil makes a wonderful companion piece to his film The Innkeepers. Both maintain the director’s referential approach to horror, incapsulating it in a slow burning 90 minutes that manages to build and maintain tension while cheekily winking to the audience and showing the mechanisms behind the scares.
Read the full list of nominees for the Midlands Movies Awards 2025