With one film festival under their belt, a pair of South Surrey brothers are setting their sights on Hollywood.
Brandon and Jordan Willetts have returned from France’s prestigious Cannes Film Festival’s after screening their short film Mayfly at the Short Film Corner.
Filmed throughout the Lower Mainland – including White Rock – the film focuses on one man’s journey on the day he finds out exactly when he’ll die.
“Most of the time, no one watches the films. We were lucky there was one German businessman who watched the movie and the next day he came back and watched it again,” Jordan said.
“Another guy, who we didn’t know, designated Mayfly as his favourite movie in the Short Film Corner.”
Both Brandon, 26, and Jordan, 24, agreed that the film festival was a learning experience that will help with their future endeavour – a feature film.
Through a number of networking events scheduled at the festival, the brothers were able to make connections and learn more about the industry.
“We know most short films don’t get purchased, so we went more to learn the ropes. We weren’t really pushing or hustling hard,” Brandon explained.
“We had some pretty good feedback for our concept.”
The duo is eyeing a move to California early next year, where they plan to pitch a feature film.
In the meantime, they are waiting for responses from a number of other film festivals they applied for.
“While we wait, we’re trying to mull over some ideas and put something on paper to develop our feature project,” Jordan said.
“Now that we have a short film checked off our list, it’s on to the next thing.”