'Dissolution' Short Film

Aim

Black House Pictures are raising the production budget for 'Dissolution' - a short, coming-of-age film, about finding your path.

Dissolution is a short, coming of age drama about the stories we tell ourselves, and the power of finding the extraordinary in the everyday.

We’ve all been there; whether graduating from school, college or university, there is a moment in all our lives when we step out of full time education and into the rest of our lives and we think ‘what now?’ Taking our first steps into uncertainty is hard enough, but what if you lack the self belief to begin your own path, and what does it take for you to even try?

Dissolution is a film that asks these questions and more; written and directed by award winning filmmaker Kate Tuck, starring Annie Taylor and Sadhbha Odufuwa-Bolger, produced by Kate Tuck and Jonathan Reid-Edwards for Black House Pictures, this is a coming of age drama with a magic realist spin.

What's the story?

Dissolution tells the story of Alice, who’s just returned from university for good, and is back living with her family in the seaside town she calls home. Anger and frustration lead Alice to feeling stuck, until an uncanny encounter with a local occultist challenges her to change her mind.

We follow Alice over the course of one day: navigating her Mum at breakfast, and reluctantly working a shift in a seaside cafe, along with her best friend Lani. When local occultist, Irene, walks into the cafe for a cup of tea and offers to give Alice an experience with the supernatural to help her find her way, the routine of the day is upended as the mundane sharply slips into the uncanny.

Will Alice allow this extraordinary experience to change her mind, and allow herself to take charge of her own narrative?

Dissolution is about every day obstacles that prevent us from living as ourselves, and the large drama that exists quietly within us all. It’s a magic realist fable, with an emphasis on realism;  it portrays people as they really are, and as they really exist. 

It is a film of large emotions, tamped down just under the surface of the everyday and we need your help to make it.

Why are we fundraising?

Dissolution has been part funded by private investors, but we need your help raise the rest of the budget, in order to get this project into production and onto the big screen. 

We have a brilliant, and experienced team in front of and behind the camera, a real community of filmmakers who have worked together on multiple projects, all waiting for this project to be green lit. 

Due to when and where the film is set, we have to film it this Spring, or wait another year to shoot!

We need you to give us the best shot of telling this story in the very best way possible.

Dissolution is a story about self esteem...

The liminal space that we occupy when we leave full time education can be a strange and disorientating place; Dissolution explores how Alice is stuck in this void, unable to move forward because she has no self belief. 

Like many people, Alice’s narrative about herself has been set by others in her early life; by parents who don't understand her, and struggle to accept her for who she is. She is left with an idea of herself that is overwhelmingly negative, and has become paralysed by her low self esteem.

How to escape the old narrative and begin to become her own person is a problem that Alice isn’t conscious of enough to be able to tackle, but she begins this journey through Dissolution by meeting Irene, a woman with an uncanny ability to see people for who they really are, and who has the confidence to offer her hand in help.

Why help Dissolution?

Making a film is hard. Making it independently is even harder.

Our production team at Black House Pictures have been making films for over two decades and every time we have to start from the beginning. Public funding is scarce and getting access to the right 'room' is rare. That’s why we’re coming to you, film fans and art lovers, to help bring this project to life.

Dissolution is hard to categorise: it's not a genre film, nor does it stand on a soap box; instead it’s a nuanced portrayal of a human being stuck in an emotional place that many have been and are. We’re confident that Alice’s story will resonate with a varied audience; an audience that will sit in the dark together, agreeing to take part in the communal cinematic experience, and allowing themselves to feel the world through another human being.

We’ve come up with some rewards that aim to benefit you, our pledgers, from copies of the shooting script, to opportunities to join our team as an executive producer.

Where does your money go?

The money raised through Crowdfunder will either end up on the screen, or help it get there with a festival run. Most donations will go directly to physical production costs. See below for breakdown: 

The location is a character...

Dissolution is set, and will be filmed in, the Essex seaside town of Walton-On-The Naze. Kate grew up near Walton and her love for the town, its beaches and the rugged coastline of the Naze was a significant inspiration for the film. The Naze Tower that sits atop the dramatic beach scape below is the perfect setting for Alice’s extraordinary experience with Irene. 

Like many coastal towns, Walton is often seen as a place to escape from, especially by young people who feel like they don’t fit into the perceived narrative of the place and its social paradigm, but you don’t have to look far to find people thriving outside of that narrative. Walton and places like it are underrepresented on screen, and when they are shown, are often portrayed without nuance, Dissolution addresses that through the variety of characters that have made their lives there.

A word from our director Kate -

The magic realism of Dissolution is well and truly rooted in the real world, with the emotional truth of each character a central tenet of the film. The challenge of exploring the interior life of someone as outwardly unexpressive as Alice, is met through the film’s imagery, as we connect the visual language of its world with her emotional journey. The mix of the visually poetic and emotional reality found in the films of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas.

As well as wanting audiences to emotionally connect to the story, I also want to give them the sensorial experience of Alice's life; her childhood home, the cafe, and standing on the beach nearing the end of the day. These space each have their own light and feeling, a sense of which will be explored with a tactile nature and sense of place, like that found in Peter Weir's Picnic At Hanging Rock and Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff.

In front of the camera:

Annie Taylor - Alice Walker

Annie Taylor is a London-based actor trained at LAMDA and through Open Door. After graduating in 2023, she led the short film On The Line, and appeared in BBC Casualty.

Sadhbha Odufuwa-Bolger - Lani Turner

Sadhbha graduated LAMDA in 2025. Her professional stage debut was at the Bridge Theatre in the cast of The Lady from the Sea, directed by Simon Stone. Sadhbha starred in short film A Little Bit of Light, written and directed by Mojola Akinyemi. 

Behind the camera:

Kate Tuck - Writer & Director

Kate is an award winning writer, director and producer, and co-founder of Black House Pictures with Jonathan Reid-Edwards. For Black House Pictures Kate wrote, produced and directed the award-winning Dans Le Noir (named Best British Horror at the British Independent Horror Festival in 2014) and Stranger At The Door (2017). Kate produced and co-wrote the original story for Black House Pictures’ first feature film The Good Neighbour (written and directed by Jonathan Reid-Edwards). Kate is a visiting director at LAMDA and has co-written and co-directed many short films for them including Necking (2019), Needles and Pins (2021), The Children (2022), Monotropa (2023) and Ouroboros (2024).

Pete Wallington - Cinematographer

Pete Wallington is an experienced Director of Photography who learned his craft in low budget filmmaking, where limited time and resources demanded clarity, efficiency and instinct. That background continues to shape the way he works: practical, focused and always attentive to what truly matters within the frame.

Across a large body of award-winning short films and features, he has gravitated toward character-driven stories and performance-led filmmaking. He approaches each project by keeping the camera in service of emotion rather than spectacle, and is just as comfortable on major studio productions, working within large-scale crews and high-pressure environments, as he is on independent films.

He was drawn to Dissolution by its exploration of identity, self sabotage and that unsettling feeling of not quite feeling at home, even when you're home. For Pete, the story resonates on a personal level, and he approaches the film with a focus on creating a world that feels honest, lived in and emotionally real.

Jonathan Reid-Edwards - Producer

Jonathan is an award-winning writer, director, producer. His early short Hadley TK-421 went on to win awards and play film festivals around the world. He co-founded Black House Pictures with Kate Tuck, writing and directing the 2019 feature film The Good Neighbour. He directed the music video for Beth Orton’s Forever Young, and the visualiser for her subsequent world tour and Glastonbury Festival set. His most recent short film Grilled Cheese is playing in film festivals worldwide. Jonathan is a visiting director at LAMDA, giving BA and MA actors real world experience the best way possible: by making short films with professional crews. He is also a consultant for the Film and TV Charity, as part of the Black Indie Group.

Adrian Webb - Executive Producer

Adrian held senior marketing and communications roles for 30 years with major companies prior to 'semi retirement' in 2015, upon which he was a board director for one of the UK's highest profile brands and advised tech start-ups. He is now Exec Chair of OutcomePath, a technology and strategy advisory company as well as working on his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Exeter, where he also a Post-Graduate Teaching Assistant and occasionally lectures on Al ethics/risks. Over the last decade, Adrian has been a passive adviser and investor in areas he’s passionate about, including tech, health, music and the application of philosophy, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience and tech to deep rooted commercial/societal problems.

Adrian is a jazz guitarist with 1.3m streams on Spotify, and has been an executive producer (and latterly composer) on three films for Black House Pictures.

Risks and challenges

"The natural state of a movie is 'not-getting-made.'" - Guillermo del Toro

Making a film is hard! Everything and anything can go wrong when it comes to the shoot day. Our battle hardened team have experienced those days in abundance and have got all the footage 'in the can'; we know first hand what it takes to accomplish the day and make it out on top.

What if you only raise part of the budget?

Our team are used to working on a shoestring budget and we'll make it work.

With your help, we're sure to go into physical production on Dissolution this year!

Thank you!

Thank you for reading this far - if you're still with us, I'm sure you'd love to know how you can help:

All size contributions will help towards us reaching our goal, and if you can't back us financially this time, we totally understand. We'd love for you to help us spread the word about Dissolution any way you can - social media, messagings, emails, carrier pigeons - you get the picture!

We're on Instagram as @dissolution.film - follow us for updates.

Thanks for supporting Dissolution - with your help, we know that we can make something really special.

This project successfully funded on 3rd May 2026