All of this changes, however, in the form of a book – withered and unnamed – which which is given to him one night. Fervently, he reads it, and seeing its contents as a sign that he may still be able to escape, he manically sets about recreating the book within the confines of his cell, so that he, too, may click his heels, say “There’s no place like home” and leave all of this horror and desperation behind.

Words by writer & director David Ward.

Dorothy is a picture that is perhaps elusively simple, for it is, at it’s core, a picture that concerns somewhat standard over arching ideas of faith, home, love, family, friendship and death. Yet it is the film’s presentation and packaging of these ideas that makes it so mercurial and bizarre, and this is what excites me most as a director, and it is this that motivates my choices as a director.

On the surface, one could be forgiven for seeing Dorothy as one man’s slow descent into atrophy and insanity via the childhood notion of “make-believe”, but at its core, Dorothy is about a man who loses his faith, then regains it in the form of delusion, family and friendship, and then, subsequent to that, a new-found notion of home in the form of death. Two very different readings of the one text is endlessly exciting to me, and fills me with the utmost enthusiasm it terms of the potential this film holds. If done well, that is.

That is, of course, the great challenge of Dorothy: to do it well. It is a production that hinges on so many different, equally important elements. Production design, visual aesthetic in terms of the cinematography, sound design, music and - perhaps most importantly - direction and performance all enter into this very challenging little puzzle of a film. Whilst such finite detail and precision may look and feel daunting, I see it as hugely exciting and empowering, since I know I’m surrounded by only the best people for their subsequent positions. Their expertise and knowledge will support my inadequacies as a writer & director and produce the most complete, powerful package we could ever hope to achieve.

Dorothy is in the most capable of hands it could ever possibly be in, and is being tackled by a team whose many decades of experience encompass everything from theatre to film to mime to dance to jazz and classical music and beyond. It is with the utmost excitement that we present to you the wonderful production team behind Dorothy:

PRODUCER | Steph Westwood

WRITER & DIRECTOR | David Ward

CINEMATOGRAPHER | Thomas Hayes

EDITOR | Jonathon Stevens Onians

PRODUCTION DESIGNERS | Shalee Treharne & Kris Krunes

SOUND DESIGNER | Tim McCormack

COMPOSER | Luke Howard

SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS | Tristan Lucas

SET DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION | John Ward

Granted, Dorothy doesn't require an enormous amount of money to be made. Despite the fact that the film is being shot on 35mm film, on an entirely fabricated set, the team have always strived to make this film as well as possible for as little as possible. Therefore, every dollar donated is precious and valuable, and your generous donations will be used to help us:

- Pay for the materials required to build and paint the set for Dorothy.

- Pay for the processing of the 35mm negative film stock on completion of the film.

- Professionally colour grade the finished product.

- Offset post-production costs relating to sound design and mixing.

- Record Luke Howard's beautiful, haunting score in the most rich, professional way possible.

- Feed the cast and crew!

But beyond the fact that Dorothy is an endlessly exciting project, being tackled by a most competent team of artists, the question of "Why donate to Dorothy?" comes down to care.

Dorothy is a unique piece of work, and one that presents ideas that every human being must consider at some point in their lives in the most obscure, transcendent way possible; it is a genuine, bold attempt to make a film that bypasses the intellectual, cerebral part of the audience's brain and cut straight to their human heart. This may sound corny and hugely immodest, but we do believe that with the support of those who care about what they watch and want to see something genuinely different, we can achieve this.

Concept artwork & storyboards by David Ward