Britain has changed through the years; people from many different backgrounds have fought their way to gain respect, the right to live, work and to be called British nationals. Our parents and their parents created the foundation which has gifted us the right to be born in Britain and the opportunity to live a life through our own choices. When you go to shopping centres, restaurants, cinemas, investment banks and universities we see an integrated community, where everyone is mixing in work, relationships and friendship, but this is not because they have to, it’s because it’s now normal, normal to choose who you associate with not by their colour or background but by the person they are.
Wannabee Filmies is about a group of friends from an array of different ethnic backgrounds all just having one common interest, which is to become successful actors.
The film captures a comic journey that the group travels through in trying to achieve their goal.
Most of the group have been close friends from university, where they forged a great friendship, but some of the group members were a little more than just friends.
During University things were more positive; opportunities were coming thick and fast from all directions. After university the group slowly lost touch as everyone got busy in their own lives.
Five years had passed; no one from the group has done anything substantial in their chosen career pathway, maybe it was because of the lack of opportunity or even motivation. The group were just surviving, well those members that didn’t have a pot of gold from their parents.
At their fifth reunion they decided that this would be the final year they attempted to break into acting. So they decided to live together so they could help each other in castings and motivate each other to succeed.
The group tackle every day issues, such as relationships, work related problems, pregnancy, death, inter-racial relationships, racism, family issues and general things that all young people get up to these days.
The group show solidarity even through the toughest times and always see the best in what’s in front of them. Through the journey others join the group in a pursuit of happiness a meaning to exist, to do something they believe in.
They are doing everything but acting, someone is working in a restaurant, office reception, as a waiter and other non-related to acting jobs. The group are starting to lose faith, but in the mist of all this a love story which started and ended at university is slowly emerging as both are too stubborn and scared to say anything because of the issues it would cause with their families, because the guy is Sikh and the girl Muslim.
They celebrate Diwali and Halloween and show how they all get involved in each other’s cultures, with respect and the eagerness to learn. They treat culture as a gift which they can share with others but their identity is that they are all born in the same country, which makes them exactly the same ‘British’.
When all hope is fading for them to reach their destiny, an opportunity arises, they enter as a group in a new acting talent competition, which would be live in front of millions of viewers and the winners of the show would be put in to a big budget Hollywood production as the main leads / actors. They practice and practice, but things don’t work out, they start to argue and when it looks like things are finally going to come to an end a person from their past helps them to get a mentor to help the act and to create a sequence that will make people stand up and clap.
The mentor is a famous celebrity who has been identified in media not only for their celebrity status but for their performances in film along with the life style the celebrity portrays, in being a kind generous person, who is always looking to help people. This is a pivotal role within the film as the mentor makes them believe they can make it.
The mentor makes them go through vigorous training regimes, which finally prepares them for the performance of their life. In all this commotion all of their loose ends are tied up things like family, relationships and friendship. It was a new beginning for them because not only did they believe but so did everyone around them.
They performed and they made the audience and judges stand up and clap, they made it through the auditions and in to the main show and everyone knew that they had witnessed something very special.
The Story Begins........