Film director Toby Roberts plans to use Wivenhoe in Berlin Film Festival entry (From Gazette)

Film director Toby Roberts plans to use Wivenhoe in Berlin Film Festival entry

12:50pm Thursday 11th March 2010 in

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A FILM director from Colchester has won 30,000 euros to make a comedy flick for a prestigious festival.

Toby Roberts plans to go on location in Wivenhoe to shoot the short film, about a young man who robs a post office.

The 41-year-old, of Recreation Road, was one of 350 film-makers selected from 4,700 who applied to take part in Talent Campus at the Berlin Film Festival, known as the Berlinale.

He had the chance to work with top directors, including Stephen Frears, who directed Oscar-nominated film the Queen, and Stephen Daldry, who made Billy Elliot.

As part of the session, participants were able to submit a script, written to fit the theme “you are now leaving the familiar sector”.

Mr Roberts’s comedy, Spoilt Broth, about a young man who is driven to steal through desperation, was one of 14 selected by judges.

He and the other short-listed directors were then given coaching on how to pitch movies to production companies, before presenting their work for real to a series of German companies.

To his delight, Mr Roberts found out he was one of five entrants who had been picked for the chance to bring their scripts to life on the big screen.

As his short film is only three minutes long, he will have 10,000 euros (about £9,000) a minute to spend on getting the best possible sound and picture quality.

The result will be shown at next year’s Berlinale and he hopes it will help him realise his dream of making a big-budget Hollywood movie.

Mr Roberts said: “When I found out, I was running around the house, laughing and screaming out loud with tears of joy. I think my neighbours might have assumed I’d finally lost my mind!

“As well as Berlin, we hope to show it at Cannes and some of the other big festivals. I will probably film it in August when the weather is nice.

“One of the conditions is we have to edit it in Germany, but I want to film it around here as I like to use local places and friends when I can.”

Mr Roberts said he was hoping to use Wivenhoe Post Office for some scenes, but there could be security issues about his team going behind the counter.

He joked: “Now I have funding, hopefully I will be able to persuade the post office we will be giving them money instead of taking it off them.”

Mr Roberts is already an accomplished writer, producer and director, who has previously worked as an assistant director on war film Home of the Brave. He now aims to persuade a Hollywood studio to let him make a full-length feature.

He has come up with an action adventure about a girl from south London who gets in trouble after her family relocates to New Mexico.

Mr Roberts said: “I have to persuade a studio to invest millions of dollars. Now I’ve got a decent short film on the go, it can only help.”