Johnny Brewin runs the Republic Of Park Royal in north-west London. This is a creative hub that gives studio space to around 250 “artists and makers,” among them UK-based Mexican filmmaker, Laura Plancarte, who has edited some of her previous work there.
“We became firm friends and when she [Plancarte] decided to make a film in London for the first time, that was when I got involved and jumped on board then,” Brewin explains how he has come to produce Plancarte’s feature doc Boom!(presented as a work in progress in VdR this week).
Plancarte has lived in London for 17 years but most of her previous work has been made elsewhere, in Mexico or the US. “I thought maybe it is time I make a British film,” the director states.
Her methodology for discovering new subjects is straightforward and ‘organic.’ “Basically I fall in love with people,” she says. “I meet them…and then it happens!”
The new documentary has a strong Park Royal connection. Its protagonists are George and Sonia, French May Thai boxers who run a successful gym in the Park Royal complex. (George fights under the name Georges Remy Salomon).
The title comes from the way boxers talk: “then I went in the ring and this happened – boom!”
“I thought why not call it something quite universal. We all understand that boom! means. An explosion, the birth of something,..this will cover not only the boxing part but what is happening inside them. That’s why I chose it. It’s easy, short, and works in all languages.”
Plancarte met George and Sonia at Park Royal when Brewin was showing her round the neighbourhood. He casually introduced her to gum owner George. “He’s very charismatic and very striking looking. I dismissively introduced them…and that was it!” Brewin remembers.
The director immediately told George that she was a filmmaker and wanted to meet him again. At first, he was a little wary.
“Slowly, I started to go and see him…we started to get to know each other. I realised he was someone very, very deep and that the boxing was just the outside layer. He told me he was married. At some point, he told me he had converted to Islam when he was 19.”
Eventually, George introduced Plancarte to his wife. The first time she saw her, Sonia was hitting a punch bag that her husband was holding. The filmmaker was astounded by Sonia’s power and realised she would add an extra level to the film.
George and Sonia are now parents. When Plancarte started filming, their son Nolan was just six months old. (Now he is four). They also have a daughter, Lyla.
“In some ways they are similar and in some ways they are very different,” she says of the couple at the heart of her documentary. “It’s not a coincidence that they are a couple. When one is down, the other pushes him or her to get up…when you have a couple where both are ambitious and both want to be winners, you need that sort of relationship.”
Their gym has become very successful. “They have a huge community of people who come and train specifically with them. They have waiting lists now [to join].”
George is professional and has fought at the very top level. (He is currently an intercontinental champion). Sonia starts as an amateur, but is shown in the film having her first pro fight.
“It’s quite violent, quite extreme,” Brewin says of a sport that originated in Thailand. The Thai version of Muay Thai is heavily regulated and has an element of spirituality. In the west, though, bouts can be vicious and fighters are sometimes injured badly. This poses a dilemma for George and Sonia.
“They run a successful gym. They’ve got children. They are very much in love with each other. They are toward the end of their fighting careers,” Brewin notes.
The question facing the couple now is why continue when they already have so much and there are such risks? Other fighters who’ve competed for too long have sometimes ended up losing everything.
The filmmakers frame the fighters’ situation in a broad, philosophical light. “What is it about us as human beings that drives us constantly?” Brewin asks.
Plancarte identifies closely with the athletes. As a filmmaker, she too is intensely motivated and single-minded. “We are chasing the rush,” she says. “Obviously, I don’t put myself at risk like they do. But as an independent filmmaker, you need to do 10 roles yourself…you need to do everything and it is exhausting. Why do I choose this [as a career]? I am the same as them…I cannot think about everything else!”
When George and Sonia are in training, they have tunnel vision. They are loving and “fabulous” parents but when new fights are scheduled, they work relentlessly.
Plancarte filmed the training up close and personal. “It was very tight, the space, so my camera needed to be super close to them. I would get all the adrenalin from them…at some points, George was afraid that I was going to get hit.”
The director isn’t a boxing fan – and making the film hasn’t changed her perspective on the sport. Nonetheless, she was fascinated by the sheer intensity of the athletes.
In one of his bouts, George suffers a damaging defeat. She suggests that this is because, for once, “the demon didn’t arrive.” Ask her to define the demon and she replies: “you cannot fight without a demon.”
“It’s about losing control,” Brewin adds. “Previously, he let something else take him over so he could be violent and precise, and fight in a particular way. After he had kids, he started thinking about that in a different way and what it meant. He tried to control how he fought, fighting with technique alone and controlling the demon inside of him. But that is when he loses. It’s when it [the demon] takes control of him that he is a winner.”
The film is close to completion. Ten minutes were screened in Nyon to an enthusiastic response.
Support has come from British, French and Mexican sources but Brewin says that raising the finance has been more challenging than he anticipated.
“It’s tough,” he sighs about his experiences as a first time producer. “When we first talked about it, I thought it would be a breeze in the park because I am used to raising funds for capital projects and other cultural projects – but the film world is an absolute labyrinth. I won’t lie. It hasn’t been easy, but we got there in the end.”
Former Storyville head Mandy Chang is on board as an executive producer and another industry heavyweight, Christilla Huillard-Kann, is producing alongside Brewin.
The film should be ready by the end of the year or early 2027. Brewin and Plancarte have been in Nyon thus week meeting with distributors, sales agents and festival programmers.
