Pure: Proof of Concept

Aim

This crowdfunder is to aid in funding our our proof of concept for the feature film Pure.

A historical drama set in the 1600s that follows Jelena, a refugee fleeing her home country and seeking asylum in a Puritan village in England.  

Project Story

PURE is a historical feature film set in 1659 — but it is not a film about the past.

It is a film about what happens when someone arrives somewhere they are not from, carrying everything they are, and asks — simply by existing — for the right to belong. It is a film about colour, glass, and light. And it is a film about what a community does when it decides that someone is not one of them.

The parallels with the world we live in now are not accidental. They are the point.

In 1659, a woman crosses into a Puritan Yorkshire village. She is foreign. She is a widow. She is skilled. She does not hide who she is. The village must decide what to do with her — and in that decision, something is revealed about the village itself: about fear, about power, about who gets to say who belongs and who does not.

We are raising funds for the proof of concept — the stage of filmmaking that builds the visual and emotional world of the film, brings the creative team together, and demonstrates to the wider industry that this story is ready to be told at full scale.

Your support goes directly toward the creative team, production design, the craftsmanship of the stained glass itself, and everything needed to bring this world to life on screen.

PURE is bold, independent filmmaking rooted in history and alive to the present. Whether you love film, historical drama, visual art, or stories that take the past seriously as a mirror of now — we want you with us.

What's the Plot?

We can't give the full story away — but we can tell you this.

PURE follows a woman who arrives in a world suspended between collapse and change, carrying grief, skill, and the hope of beginning again. What she finds instead is a society shaped by fear, hunger, religion, and power — a place where colour has become dangerous, beauty is suspect, and even memory itself feels threatening.

As she moves deeper into that world, PURE becomes a story about belonging, migration, repression, and what it costs to remain fully human inside a system that wants obedience more than truth.

The rest, you will have to see.

Your Support Will Help Us

Every contribution to PURE goes directly toward bringing this world to life — the creative team, the production design, the stained glass itself, and the craftsmanship that sits at the heart of the story. This proof of concept is not a shortcut. It is the foundation: the stage at which the visual language of the film is established, the creative collaboration is built, and the case for the full feature is made.

Independent filmmaking at this level depends on people who believe in a story before the industry does. If you are here, you are one of those people — and that matters more than we can easily say.

We will keep you with us as this journey unfolds. You will hear from us as the proof of concept takes shape, as the world of the film comes into being, and as PURE moves step by step toward the screen. We are not asking you to fund a finished thing. We are inviting you into the making of it.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading this far. Thank you for caring about stories that take the past seriously as a mirror of the present.

Funding Goals and Breakdown

Our target is £30,000. Every pound goes directly into the making of this proof of concept.

• Creative team fees — director, writer, lead actor, cinematographer, and production manager
• Production design — building the visual world of 1659 Yorkshire: locations, set dressing, props
• Stained glass craftsmanship — the glass itself, the tools, and the artisan expertise at the heart of the story
• Costume — historically researched, handcrafted, and central to the film's visual argument
• Sound and score — original composition and location sound recording
• Post-production — editing, colour grading, sound design
• Documentation — behind-the-scenes footage, photography, and archive material for the 20 Chairs research lab

If we exceed our target, additional funds will go toward extending the shoot days and strengthening post-production.

Timeline

• Now — April 2026: Kickstarter campaign live. HAVC script development decision expected 16 April.
• Spring 2026: 20 Chairs research lab. Pre-production begins. Locations confirmed.
• Summer 2026: Proof of concept filming.
• Autumn 2026: Post-production — edit, sound, colour.
• Winter 2026: Proof of concept complete. Festival submissions and industry presentations begin.
• 2027: Full feature film development, financing, and pre-production.

Who We Are

Jagoda Kamov - Writer, Creator, Actress

https://www.jagodakamov.co.uk/

I'm a London-based theatre director, actress, and writer. After fifteen years working across theatre and film, I reached a point where I no longer wanted to separate those parts of myself — to choose between the set and the rehearsal room, between performance and authorship, between acting in a story and building one from the inside. PURE grew out of that moment. It is the project where my experience as a performer, theatre-maker, and detail-driven storyteller comes together most fully.

The script came from something very concrete and intimate: my relationship with glass. I am a glass artist myself, and the idea for PURE emerged from that physical, crafted relationship to the material. For me, stained glass is not beauty or decoration — it is discipline, patience, cutting, error, breakage, and repair. There is something profoundly human in that process, which is why it became the right language for a story about exile, migration, belonging, and the pressure of a system that keeps deciding who is allowed a place, a voice, and visibility. As a Croatian migrant in the UK, I feel those questions very personally. They are not abstract to me. They are daily.

I chose to tell this story through the seventeenth century because history gives both distance and clarity. When you strip away the contemporary costume, the mechanisms of fear, control, exclusion, and moral judgment become even more visible. PURE may be set in a Puritan world, but what drew me to it is how sharply it reflects our own time — a world of ideological rigidity, social shame, and the constant measuring of who belongs and who remains only conditionally tolerated. At its heart, this film asks a question that feels painfully current: what does it mean to exist as a full human being in a space that keeps trying to define you from the outside?

As the actor playing Jelena, I am not approaching this role from the outside. My interpretation is grounded in somatic practice and in real, physical knowledge of working with glass — the rhythm of the hands, the concentration of the body, the relationship to tools, resistance, and fragility. Those things cannot be faked. They have to be lived. That is one of the reasons this project matters so deeply to me. PURE is not only a story I wrote — it is a world I already know.

Greg William Randolph Jr. - Director

https://gregrandolphjr.com/greg-randolph 

I'm a London-based director, writer, and producer — an Emmy Award winner, a London Film School graduate, and a judge at the Earl's Court International Film Festival. Before moving into independent filmmaking, I worked in broadcast television with NBC, HBO, and ABC News. My graduate film Different Faces premiered at the Rhode Island International Film Festival in 2025.

On PURE, I am the lead producer and director, and what drew me to this project was simple: its honesty. This is a story that tackles immigration and belonging through the eyes of a woman living in an entirely different century — and yet nothing about it feels distant. The questions it asks are the questions being asked right now, on the streets outside.

For me, this stage of filmmaking is about care, precision, and trust — and dedication. It is about building something together from the ground up, with people I know and respect, and doing it with the full commitment the story deserves. I know PURE will take us to unexpected and exciting places. I welcome that.

We are developing this as an ambitious independent feature film, and this proof of concept is a vital part of that journey. But we cannot do it without you.

Vaibhav Sanghavi - Director of Photography

Vaibhav Sanghavi is an Indian cinematographer, based in London and has been working worldwide shooting short films, commercials and music videos. He has extensively worked on projects shot across different formats ranging from Super8, 16mm, Super 16, 35mm, and digital large format cameras.

https://www.vaibhavsanghavi.com/

Danijel Pek — Co-Producer (Croatia)

https://antitalent.hr/ 

Danijel Pek is a Croatian producer and co-production partner on PURE, bringing essential creative and institutional connections between the UK and Croatian film industries. His involvement as Eurimages co-production partner ensures the film is developed with a genuinely international perspective — rooted in the Croatian history at the heart of the story, and built with the ambition of a European co-production.

Takatsuna Mukai — Composer

https://takatsuna.com/

Takatsuna Mukai is a London-based composer whose work spans film, theatre, and concert music. On PURE, he is responsible for the original score — music that will need to hold the tension between a seventeenth-century world and a story that speaks urgently to the present. His involvement from this early stage means the sonic identity of the film is being built alongside its visual one.

Gillian McIver — Historical Consultant (17th Century England)

https://gillianmciver.org/

Gillian is our historical consultant for seventeenth-century England, bringing specialist knowledge of the Puritan period, North Yorkshire, and the social and religious landscape that shapes the world Jelena enters. Her role is to ensure that the world of the film is grounded in rigorous historical accuracy — so that its dramatic and emotional arguments carry genuine weight. Gill's Website: https://theartraveller.com 

Partners and Supporters

Conway Hall — home of the South Place Ethical Society and one of London's most important independent cultural venues — has expressed interest in hosting the PURE 20 Chairs research lab and workshop filming. Conway Hall exists to host difficult conversations about ethics, society, and human experience. The 20 Chairs Project is exactly that kind of conversation.

PROPOSAL: The 20 Chairs Project

1. Executive Summary

The 20 Chairs Project is an immersive, multi-disciplinary research lab designed to bridge the gap between historical narrative and modern-day lived experience. By bringing together 20 individuals from diverse migration backgrounds, the project uses a combination of filmed inquiry and physical theater to explore the friction between cultural identity and the pressure of integration in the UK.

This lab serves as the "Social Engine" for the upcoming feature film PURE, ensuring the cinematic portrayal of the "First Migrant" (1659) is grounded in the visceral, raw truth of those navigating British systems today.

2. Participant Demographics (The "10/10" Framework)

To capture a true cross-section of the migrant experience, the lab assembles 20 participants:

• 10 Economic Migrants: Those who chose the UK for professional or financial opportunity.
• 10 Refugees: Those for whom the UK is a site of necessary sanctuary.
• The Arrival Split: 10 "New Arrivals" (under 2 years in the UK) vs. 10 "Established Residents" (10+ years in the UK).

This is a professional, comprehensive proposal designed to be sent to Cultural Centers, Arts Councils, Trusts & Foundations, and Social Impact Funders. It frames The 20 Chairs Project not as a rehearsal, but as a high-value social inquiry — and the social research engine for PURE (feature film in development). Created by Jagoda Kamov.

Conway Hall is now confirmed as a programme co-presentation partner for the 20 Chairs Project — not just venue hire, but a full partnership. Conway Hall (home of the South Place Ethical Society) exists to host difficult conversations about ethics, society, and human experience — exactly aligned with the 20 Chairs inquiry into identity, migration, and the anatomy of othering. This brings their audience networks for participant recruitment, institutional credibility for funders, potential reduction in venue costs, and a letter of support.

The British-Croatian Society

The British-Croatian Society is a partner in the development of PURE, supporting the film's commitment to authentic Croatian cultural representation and helping build the bridge between the British and Croatian cultural communities whose histories this story connects.

Our Impact

PURE is not made in isolation from the world it speaks about. At every stage of its development, the film is in active conversation with the people whose experiences it reflects — migrants, refugees, and anyone who has ever been made to feel that their presence requires justification.

Through the 20 Chairs Project — a live research lab running alongside the film's development — we are bringing together twenty people from diverse migration backgrounds to explore the same questions PURE asks through its historical lens: what does it cost to belong? What do you give up to be accepted? What happens in a community when fear becomes policy?

The footage and findings from those sessions feed directly back into the script, ensuring that what appears on screen has been tested against lived reality — not just imagined from the outside.

Beyond the research, PURE contributes to a wider cultural conversation that independent film is uniquely placed to have. It gives visibility to a story that mainstream cinema rarely tells: a migrant woman in history, shown not as a victim but as a full human being — skilled, complex, defiant, and alive. That representation matters. It matters to people who rarely see themselves reflected in period drama. It matters to people trying to understand what exclusion looks like when it wears a historical costume. And it matters to anyone who believes that art has a responsibility to the present moment, not only to the past.

Your support makes that possible — not just the film, but everything the film sets in motion.

Other Ways You Can Help

Not everyone can contribute financially — and that is completely understood. There are other ways to be part of PURE that matter just as much.

Share this page. If this story resonates with you, tell someone else about it. Send it to a friend, post it, talk about it. Word of mouth is how independent films find their audience, and every person who discovers PURE because of you is a genuine contribution to what we are building.

Follow our journey. We will be sharing updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and the ongoing development of the film as we go. Stay with us. Watch the world of PURE take shape.

Connect us. If you know someone — a filmmaker, a funder, a cultural institution, a journalist, a glass artist, a historian, anyone — who might be interested in this project, we would love an introduction. The right connection at the right moment can change everything.

Believe in the story. Independent filmmaking runs on momentum, and momentum runs on people who care. Simply knowing that this story matters to you — that it is worth telling, worth watching, worth supporting — keeps us going through the difficult stages every film has to pass through.

Closing

We look forward to telling you more about PURE and how our journey unfolds, making this film.  Thank you for being a part of it. 

— Jagoda & Greg

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 20th August 2026 at 11:15am