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VICKI PSARIAS

27-year-old Vicki started young, and has come a long way since she directed her first film - about Britain's litter problems - at the age of 11.

"My Dad, who was my cameraman, shot the film with a VHS camera that I begged him to hire," she recalls. "It was hysterical. We made it to send in to Going Live for a strand on films made by young people."

Unfortunately, the area that she filmed in Leeds wasn't sufficiently untidy, so long before the industry started navel-gazing about TV fakery Vicki injected a bit of creativity, dressing her set with surplus rubbish, scrupulously cleared away again afterwards.

These days, she's more likely to be found working towards her feature-film ambitions, developing ideas of nationality and conflict already raised in her short films Rifts and Broken. She's also keen to "write and direct TV drama, and direct other people's scripts."

I like that Vicki is unafraid to tell emotional, personal and, perhaps, unfashionable stories - and that she attempts with Broken to capture the feelings of a confused young girl with sensitivity and imagination.

This successful film was of course the result of plenty of hard work and planning on its director's part. Vicki advises new filmmakers to "take time to prepare your shoot. Once you have your actors on board, shoot the rehearsals and start thinking about your shots. Storyboards are a great way of planning the way the film will cut together."

For Broken, Vicki had storyboard artist Alice Belibi map out the entire film, something she describes as providing essential "visual support" at the pre-production stage.

She's a keen advocate of shooting as much material as possible, especially on a tight budget when a decent range of options in the edit can get you out of a sticky situation in post-production. "And get someone to take stills on set, as you'll need these for posters and publicity," she adds. "Vanessa Scott-Thompson, my fantastic stills photographer, has been invaluable."

Vicki is adamant that the hardest part of independent filmmaking is still that age-old problem - finding the cash - but not to give up hope of finding funding.

"I was lucky that Broken was selected from hundreds to be funded by the Tower Hamlets & Hackney Film Fund, and the Hellenic Foundation, London. There are many schemes out there. But whether you get funding or not, support can also be gained from local businesses - often it's as easy as picking up the phone and asking."

It's Vicki's never-say-die attitude and creative approach to solving problems - her parents' award-winning restaurant The Olive Tree in Leeds was roped in to feed cast and crew - that has seen her stand out in such a competitive field.

Broken shows that there's a feature film lurking inside Psarias. Not only is the visual element of the film handled with confidence, but there's a depth to the characterisation that suggests that with more development she could realise her ambitions and sustain a feature-length project.

CONTACTS

www.vpsarias.com
vpsarias@googlemail.com

Judge: Dave Calhoun, film editor, Time Out
Photography: Sam Colman

Vicki was one of 20 4Talent Award winners in 2007, our hotly tipped young creatives to watch, to hire and to collaborate with. To meet the other 19 click here