Ellie Bindman is a 20 year old actor and writer, with an overwhelming passion to shoot her gritty yet uplifting feature film, TELL ME WHY?
Ellie Bindman is a 20 year old actor and writer, with an overwhelming passion to shoot her gritty yet uplifting feature film, TELL ME WHY?, based on her award winning short film ‘Taciturn’ which she wrote when she was just 15 years old as an escape from feeling isolated and bullied.
TELL ME WHY? is absolutely fiction, BUT written from the heart and soul of a teen who has felt the brutal, searing pain of teen survival. The fictional character, Molly, has won a scholarship to a prestigious school but, to add to her anxiety, she is from a dysfunctional family, living a less prestigious lifestyle after her father died suddenly leaving them almost destitute. There are class and social anxieties simmering as well as sexual jealousies, sexual bullying and identity confusions.
Ellie, like many people, was socially bullied when she was younger...
Ellie, like many people, was socially bullied when she was younger and soon, from being a confident, bubbly little girl, found it difficult to ‘fit in’, especially in the playground situation of banter, quips, sarcasm and facial expressions, and she probably misread some situations to be fair, but her self esteem dropped to almost zero.
She found strength in her passion for performing, acting, singing and dancing, and eventually in writing ‘Taciturn’. The only time she felt confident was when performing as another person, in film or in dance, and she’s been lucky that in her career, from the first feature film she was cast in aged 10 (‘Frank’ by Richard Heslop, nominated for a BIFA) she has had a pretty full performing cv. In the last 18 months she has had featured roles in ‘Call The Midwife’, Granchester’ and ‘Casualty’ as well as having had lead roles in two independent feature films and two short films in Berlin, plus various short films and music videos, a programme for BBC Arts, and has recently been filming in Ireland.
Ellie wrote the first draft of TELL ME WHY on the train on her school commute...
She wrote the first draft of TELL ME WHY? on the train on her school commute for her GCSE’s, and since then the script has undergone 10 edits with co writers and co producers Diney Bindman and Phil Taylor, who is also our Executive producer. Diney is also Ellie’s Mum.
We have everything ready for shooting, apart from our total budget, but we are well on the way, thanks to our Teaser, which we filmed in July. The Kickstarter campaign, run by Ellie, raised twice the target money in the amazingly fast time of 14 hours from the campaign being launched, showing how much encouragement and enthusiasm there is for this film to be made, highlighting as it does the hideous global phenomenon of bullying and suicide, known as Bullycide.
The TELL ME WHY? includes hugely popular UK TV, stage and film actors Terri Dwyer, Glenn Salvage and Mark Wingett...
The cast, as well as Ellie herself, includes hugely popular UK TV, stage and film actors Terri Dwyer, Glenn Salvage and Mark Wingett as well as Disney’s The Lodge actor Jayden Revri, dynamic actors Olivia Jewson, Peter Mcpherson, Kat Ronson, Stephanie Slama (co-producer), Matilda Brookes, Issie Methven, Sharon Lawrence, Bertie Cox, Luisa Guerreiro, Hannah Hutchins and Roz Brierley.
TELL ME WHY? has in its cast and crew very many talented women, with 2 female producers, two female writers and a female Director, award winning Jane Sanger of Luminofilms, who also has a feature film SWIPERIGHT to be released in 2020.
We feel that TELL ME WHY? is a story that needs to be told, highlighting horrible, spiteful, bullying, rape, mental anguish, dark suicidal thoughts, post bereavement fallout, revenge and forgiveness, and yet, of course, Ellie wants to give a positive ending, for Molly’s nemesis somehow becomes her saviour…. but no more here, for that would be telling!
Diney Bindman
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