Undoubtedly one of the hit gay movies – both at festivals and with wider audiences – of last year was Shank, an exciting and fresh tale of gangs, loyalty, sexual repression, love, double-crossing, revenge and redemption.

The filmmakers behind Shank are readying their latest movie, Release, for its world premiere in Sydney in February and it’s already receiving huge interest from gay film festivals around the world. Release is also a love story set against a harsh backdrop, this time a prison, and the trailer promises a potent mix of sex, violence, mystery and forbidden love as an incarcerated priest and his prison guard start an illicit gay affair.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Christian Martin and Darren Flaxstone, the co-writers and directors, and quiz them about both movies:

First of all, congratulations on the success of Shank. It must be very gratifying after getting knocked back by the British Film Institute? Will you be giving them a second chance?

(christian) Thank you – it’s been an extraordinary hit worldwide. Our only regret is that a jury of our peers didn’t get to see the film; that the 35 teenagers/young filmmakers who we supported in making the film didn’t get to witness a British audience’s reaction. At the 2009 London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (LLGFF) there was only one independent British film playing against fourteen US indie flicks. It says less about Shank and more about the BFI’s failure to support British talent and judge films. They stated that they did not take Shank because it lacked “merit and quality” and yet it was nominated for best film in over 15 festivals, has been seen by over 32,000 people in over 78 cities worldwide, at 68 international festivals and has been the most successful British independent gay film in the UK in the last decade. The new film Release, which gets it’s world premiere in Sydney in February, has also been rejected by the LLGFF2010. Once again, you can see our films anywhere else in the world but here!

(Darren) I’m still in a state of shock at the worldwide response! In my opinion that’s why anyone attempts to make a film or tell a story of any kind, for it to be seen, and the fact that Shank has touched audiences on many different levels is just… fantastic!

Shank is very different from most gay movies getting made. Was this a conscious decision and do you even see it as a gay movie?

(Darren) Christian and myself have always seen our projects as being just challenging stories. The gay thing is just part of the situation, not the main raison d’etre. It’s sort of our mantra to break down barriers as much as possible, to make great, little films that just happen to have gay characters at the centre of them. We strive to cross over, but it’s clear that the industry at large likes to label films. When Shank screened in Bristol, in a sell out run for a week, the audience was considerably varied – at one screening we had a Q&A and a woman in her late 70’s announced that she was probably the oldest person there and straight and despite justified criticism of some plot points absolutely loved the film.

(christian) We wanted Shank to be very different, to push through the barrier of ‘coming out’ films that are all valid but that don’t really say anything contemporary or have a particular voice that speaks to the reality of the here and now. In South Africa I was doing a radio interview about the film and pushing the screening that was happening that evening in Cape Town. After the screening a 40+ year-old mother came running up to me and said she’d heard me on the radio and had to come and see it. She was shocked by it in a positive way because she felt it spoke to a generation that perhaps she couldn’t connect with and was sending her teenage sons to see it the next day – both of whom were straight (as far as she knew).

However, I am gay and proud to be making films that perhaps my gay friends can take their straight friends to see because they are good dramas with interesting stories, with something to say.

Both Shank and Release, while essentially love stories, contain some very violent and uncompromising scenes. Are you attracted to the darker side of gay experience when you write?!

(Darren) You know, for me, light and shade is what life, stories and cinema are all about. In fact it’s one of the main themes of ‘Shank’ – ‘Beauty and horror’, to my mind a powerful combination. The history of cinema is littered with amazing imagery to back this up, from the Da Da esque razor blade slashing a woman’s eye in Bunuel’s early works through to Julie Andrews running up a lush Austrian mountainside in the 60’s, cinema has constantly used wildly diverse imagery to evoke a range of emotional responses. Release allowed us to further explore this, the sensitivity and healing nature of love, contrasted with the brutality of not just prison life, but of the situations that life throws at us and the difficult decisions that we have to make.

(Christian) I’m a romantic at heart, I love a weepy love story, but after two failed relationships I now know that life ain’t like that – put that emotion into the mix of an interesting narrative that tackles contemporary issues and you have a really interesting situation. Open any paper and you’ll find stories of everyday folk that reflect goodness and love, but there will always be sad, bad and dark stories that exemplify the human tradition and condition to be able to destroy itself. Look at Iraq – one dark cloud is replaced by the supposed white light of good triumphing over evil only to end up becoming a darker cloud than the one it replaced!

Where did the story for Release evolve from?

(Darren) It was actually initially a short film idea that Christian brought to me, about a clandestine love affair between two men. If I remember rightly the crux of the story was a reveal that the two men were actually in prison and one of them was a prison guard. I loved this reveal so much that we altered the timeline of the longer film to start with this scene. Of course as we chatted things grew somewhat, the prisoner became a priest and the plot developed to make an intriguing, time-bending narrative which gradually reveals how and why the priest got there and what happens in their dangerous relationship over the last month or so of the priest’s sentence.

On Release you have worked with some of the same cast and crew from your last movie – including the star of Shank, Wayne Virgo. Do you think this enabled you to make a tougher film?

(Darren) Release was a smoother film for us to make. This time around Christian and myself probably have a more confident vision of what we were trying to achieve. It was a pleasure working with Wayne (and his perfectly formed butt!) again and Garry Summers just blew us away with his portrayal of Martin, the prison guard lover of father Jack, played by Daniel Brocklebank. Ironically, a smoother ride probably meant we could concentrate on making a tougher film, but in a more cerebral way than in Shank.

I also have to add that the new cast and crew members on Release were terrific to work with; everyone’s enthusiasm for the subject was infectious. I think a lot of the credit is due to the fantastic Daniel Brocklebank, star of films such as The Hole and Shakespeare in Love, for his enthusiasm and professionalism and for bringing a bit of Tinseltown to Bristol with him!

(Christian) Coincidentally I saw Daniel in Lord of the Flies in Stratford many years ago when he was 15 years old. I think I was working on a Merchant Ivory film at the time having some (naughty) fun with Harvey Keitel, who’s girlfriend was in the lead. Anyway 8 years later I then met Daniel through Nick Hamm with whom I was developing a big Hollywood movie and to my shame I just mentioned how good looking I thought Daniel was in The Hole (Ed: He means the film – don’t be rude). The next thing I know Nick has set us up for a drink and so Daniel and I became friends (nothing more!). It was great to be able to persuade him to take the lead for us. I know that he was also thrilled to be playing a lead role – and deservedly so – he’s terrific in the film. Garry had such a pivotal role in Shank that we couldn’t not have him back and the chemistry between him and Daniel was instant (thankfully neither of their respective boyfriends were on set). As for Wayne – who wouldn’t want to direct that bubble butt again and I think he got a lot out of working alongside Daniel.

So, any thoughts about making this into a loose trilogy of films and will you be signing up Wayne again before Hollywood comes calling?!

(Darren) Lol! By the time we get round to film number three we’ll have enough for a retrospective! Hmmm, I wonder if the BFI will be interested?!!! Seriously though, we have four more projects in development, two already written and still the ideas keep coming. Christian is already pushing for us to write Shank as a stage play; he has been talking with a novelist about an idea he has for a sequel to Shank in book-form; then there’s the André Gide novel he wants us to adapt and the portmanteau idea that I keep throwing into the mix, called ‘FUCK’… trilogy doesn’t come into it. Christian has modelled us into a mini, mini studio production line, which is fine by me.

(Christian) Darren’s gestating project, ‘FUCK’, I really want to get stuck into and I’ve got scenes on that already, but he’s pulled it back and rightly our natural flow and energy is now going into a stalker movie. It’s about a 20 year-old twink who has an affair with a married, older gay man in his 40’s who has a partner that’s in his 50’s. A woman from the past enters the scene and, well… after a really hot sex scene twixt 40 year old and twink things start to go a little ‘Fatal Attraction’. It will have the signature red herrings and plot twists that we enjoy writing and audiences seem to appreciate. It will also still retain a socio-realist edge which we believe anchors our stories into the seabed of good narrative drama.

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I’d like to wish Darren and Christian big success with Release and hopefully one day we’ll find out just exactly what sort of ‘naughty fun’ Christian got up to with Harvey Keitel!