Our Neighbour's Ass
Since the passing of Ida’s late husband Abe, Ida has been left with the responsibility of caring for his pet donkey, Pablo. Unfortunately, for Ida, Pablo has become somewhat of a local celebrity- for all the wrong reasons. From braying in the early hours, to eating neighbours' shrubbery and plodding across their gardens, Pablo has been named a local nuisance and needs to go. Following numerous warnings, Ida now has to make a decision – find a way to keep Pablo quiet, or let him go.
Why this story?
"Our Neighbour's Ass" is a light-hearted comedy, and we think the world is in need of a bit of laughter. The inspiration came from our script writer Richard's mother, who has a love for animals and owned a couple of pet donkeys when Richard was a child.
The Team:
Richard Knight (Writer, Co-producer)
Richard Knight has worked in the film industry for over 20 years, primarily as a location manager – scouting and organising location filming on projects such as the BAFTA award winning “This is England”, “Four Lions”, “Ghost Stories” and the feature film of the musical “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”, television dramas such as “Silent Witness” and “The Virtues”, and music videos for The Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg and Louis Tomlinson. Having joined Screen Yorkshire in 2014, Richard now teaches film industry skills to students across Yorkshire, outlining the many roles available on a film set and potential career paths to those roles.
Max Goldberg (Director, Co-writer)
Max is an award-winning writer-director from the UK. He has won the UK Jewish Film Short Doc Fund twice, making him the first filmmaker to win two prizes awarded by UK Jewish Film. He was also selected for the FHN x NFTS Director training programme in 2023. Max’s first short documentary, "The Peacock That Passed Over" has screened in the official selection of BAFTA and Oscar-qualifying festivals across the UK, USA, and Canada, and is distributed by Seventh Art Releasing. With a passion for honouring the traditions of cinema, Max’s work embodies a unique blend of classic and contemporary elements.
Melissa Sorrell (Producer)
Melissa has a wide range of experience; from taking part on BFI Academies, to working as the locations PA on "Andor, S2" (Disney/Lucasfilm) and running on Unscripted TV (BBC, Discovery+, Netflix); she applies her learning from high end TV/Film to her own practice on the short films she produces. Melissa has already produced two short documentaries funded by UKJF and directed by Max Goldberg, one of which "The Peacock That Passed Over", was nominated in the ‘Yorkshire Short Film Competition’ at Leeds International Film Festival 2023, and has received positive responses from audiences in the UK and across the pond.
What stage is our film at?
Our Neighbour's Ass is now in post-production. We shot our film over the span of four days at the end of June this year in Alwoodley, Leeds. We worked with an amazing crew, including Jenni Suitala as Director of Photography (Sky, Netflix, Illuminatrix Rising DOPs) and BAFTA nominated Production Designer, Janey Levick. The whole crew worked tirelessly to make ‘Our Neighbour’s Ass’ a reality and we cannot thank them enough for their time and work.
We are very lucky to have worked alongside incredible talent who brought our characters to life, including an award winning actor to portray our lead, Ida. We had this particular actor in mind from the beginning of our preparations, so we are honoured to be able to say she was happy to be a part of our short film. We won’t say too much now, but follow us on instagram here - www.instagram.com/ourneighboursassfilm/ - for updates about the project!
For post-production, we have a wonderful team on board to piece the footage together, incorporate engaging sound design and compose original music to refine the film.
Where will our film screen?
Our Neighbour's Ass will premiere at the BAFTA Qualifying UK Jewish Film Festival 2024, as our film is one of UKJF's Pears winners 2024. We feel confident our film will be a good fit for festival programmes; it is humorous, has fabulous talent behind it, and will sit around the 12-15 minute mark. If Our Neighbour's Ass is selected to screen at another BAFTA qualifying festival, we will be eligible to submit for a BAFTA! Beyond the festival circuit, we are hopeful it may be picked up by a distribution company, or shown on an online streaming service.
Why do we need financial aid?
We intend to pay every single member of our crew for their work, and also need to take festival submission costs into account, as we believe our film has the potential to be successful worldwide.
Thanks to UK Jewish Film, Richard Knight and private sponsors, we have paid all of our shoot crew for their services. Now, we just need help with the final push, so we can fund the post production stage and pay the crew for their time and services.
The areas of post-production we are raising money for are: the footage assemblies and final draft, colour grade, post sound-mix, music, film poster, VFX and festival submissions.
If you would like to help us complete our film, please donate to our crowdfunder! All sponsors will receive a thank you credit in the final film.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our film! We cannot wait to share it with you.
Pictured above: Melissa, Max & Richard on a research trip, before their film was selected as one of UKJF's Pears winners!