Picture courtesy of The Film Collaborative
Producer Lorine Plagnol will be in Sheffield this week to take part in MeetMarket with her company Sungazer’s latest project Dalton’s Dream. This is a feature doc about UK X Factor winner Dalton Harris. As a young, queer musical star from Jamaica, he is seeking love and acceptance in a world that isn’t always sympathetic toward him. The film, currently in post-production, is co-directed by Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown.
“When Kim and Franky started developing the film three years ago, I gave them a hand organising the filming in Jamaica,” Plagnol says of the project, which is also shot in the UK. The directors originally set about producing the doc themselves. In the end, though, they turned to her.
“Sungazer is not a big production company and so I choose my projects carefully. I’ve always been very much keen to tell stories linked with diversity. Dalton’s Dream really fit that wish of mine to find projects that are different, have strong messages and are also entertaining.”
The doc explores the self-hatred Dalton feels growing up queer in Jamaica. It also follows Harris as he records his first album after winning The X factor in 2018. “All of that is told through his love of music. For a very long time, music and singing were the only way for him to be really true and express himself.”
UK documentary powerhouse Dogwoof is on board as sales agent. Dogwoof’s TDog production investment fund has supported the film while executive producer Kevin Jennings has been raising funds in the US, working with non-profit organisation The Film Collaborative.
The filmmakers are now looking for post-production funds and aim to have the documentary ready for festivals in early 2023.
Director Longinotto is one of the most respected figures in UK documentary with many award-winning films (Sisters in Law; Shooting The Mafia; Rough Aunties) behind her. Murray Brown was originally working on Dalton’s Dream as a sound recordist and “general support for Kim.” He became so intimately involved that “it just made sense” to have him as co-director. “They’ve been working hand in hand,” Plagnol says of the two directors.
It’s now four years since Sungazer was set up in 2018. Plagnol didn’t envisage then that it would soon become her company. She had been brought on board by founder/producer, Oskar Pimlott.
“It’s an odd story,” she reflects. “I am French. I used to work in French productions as an assistant and an AD.” Her credits include being unit production manager on the French part of the Das Boot shoot. She later came to the UK, working on TV projects like The White Princess and Hollyoaks. Pimlott asked her to join Sungazer a few months after launching it. She was therefore involved in Sungazer’s earliest projects. When Pimlott returned to production company Pulse where he had previously worked, she was left at the helm.
“The independent producer life is bloody difficult…[but] I ended up having a company,” Plagnol says. This wasn’t what she planned and she doesn’t see herself as a natural entrepreneur. “But I’m extremely stubborn and I am also a bit of a dreamer,” she says.
Having experience in both France and the UK, Plagnol sees aspects of the film industry in both countries that she would like change. She has a strong commitment toward diverse, inclusive storytelling on screen. “Therefore, I really decided to give this identity to Sungazer that looked a little bit like me. I just decided to keep going. I am actually very happy now because I am having more and more films and shows.”
Sungazer’s slate stretches from documentaries like Dalton’s Dream to horror fare such as Helena Coan’s short Blood Ritesand TV material like Abel Rubinstein’s Life In Love, a documentary-drama series exploring young love among the Gen Z generation. The subject matters of the projects may all be very different but Plagnol says there is always “a little bit of me” in the work she takes on. She collaborates with filmmakers from a wide range of backgrounds. “Apart from that, I really like genre,” she says, adding that Sungazer’s projects always set out to be “original and entertaining” as well as to have a strong social and political undertow.
“This documentary [Dalton’s Dream] is the same. It is like a musical,” Plagnol suggests of the film which will feature several of Dalton’s songs.
The idea now is to start an impact campaign for Dalton’s Dream and to use the film to push black culture and LGBTQ+ mental awareness. Plagnol and her team are in discussion with the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG) and are planning Jamaican screenings of the documentary.
Plagnol attended the Rotterdam Producers Lab in 2020. Early in its existence, Sungazer also received a BFI Insight Vision Award.
