CULTURE

brothers doin' it for themselves

by Kirill Galetski

Special to The St. Petersburg Times

Kirill Galetski / For The St. Petersburg Times Tom (l) and Charles (r) Guard have drawn raves for their short films.

The twelfth annual "Message to Man" film festival, St. Petersburg's premier animation, documentary and short-film festival, wraps up on Saturday, and the judges for the festival's two competitions are deliberating over who should receive the accolades, including the top prize of the Golden Centaur Statuette and $5,000.

According to festival tradition, previous winners are invited again as members of the jury, and the guests at this year's festival include the Guard brothers, a pair of British film makers who won the Golden Centaur in 2000 for their brief, but brilliant, 1999 film, "Inside Out." Charles, 26, is on the International Debut Competition jury, while Tom, 29, is attending informally.

"We're really happy to be at the festival," stated Charles at the festival's opening ceremony. "Winning the festival prize helped us to make our next film."

The brothers were born and raised in London, and attended Cambridge University, where Tom's studied English and Charles studied History of Art. The film profession was part of their life from an early age, as their father, Howard Guard, directed television commercials.

Tom and Charles drifted into various production jobs, mainly associated with cinematography, working as assistant camera operators on such big-budget films as "1492: Conquest of Paradise," "Judge Dredd," and "The Avengers." They also followed their father into advertising, and now work as television-commercial directors for Rogue Films. The brothers are also developing a full-length feature project with British writer William Boyd, the author of "Good Man in Africa" and "An Ice Cream War."

The brothers made their professional debut with 1998's "Shuttle," a dialogue-heavy film that featured a couple experiencing a rift in their relationship at a train station. It was an ambitious project for their first short film, with all the trappings of a large professional shoot.

All three of their short films to date focus on the theme of urban chance encounters, and star up-and-coming British actor Lena Headey, with whom Tom became acquainted while working on a production job.

In contrast, however, the brothers wanted "Inside Out" "to be a conscious rejection of everything that had been explored with 'Shuttle,'" according to Tom. "We wanted to return to a simpler way of making films, somewhat like when we were younger. We wanted no dialogue, no lights - we used natural lighting for the film - and no large crews."

"Inside Out" is the story of a market researcher, played by noted English actor Simon McBurney, standing on a busy London street unable to get anyone to stop and fill out his survey. The researcher becomes so exasperated that he decides to play jokes on some of the passersby, and a comely young woman, played by Headey, dressing a nearby shop window, becomes his audience.

The film captures exquisitely what could be a real-life human episode in practically any city. It uses well-chosen visuals, a bright, expressionistic score and absolutely no dialogue. McBurney's animated, dynamic performance gives the film its verve, while Headey's equally spirited turn gives it heart.

The Guards both work as camera operators, and their conscious adoption of a more minimal approach has paid off. "Inside Out" has a streamlined and stylish and worldly outlook that put it in a different league from many short films. It won top short-film prizes at the Montreal Film Festival, the BBC Short Film Festival, and the Kodak awards before it played at "Message to Man."

The brothers invested their "Message to Man" prize money in their next film, "Round About Five," which starred Martin Freeman, Jodhi May and Headey, and explored similar themes (and also showed at "Message to Man" last year).

"With all three of the films, we wanted to explore the chance encounter," said Charles. "We follow it from beginning to end, and see how far it could go. It was important for us to show what went on before and after the encounter, to illuminate how far the characters could take it."

Other film-making duos - such as Joel and Ethan Coen, and Jeunet and Caro - divide their duties, with one partner usually concentrating on the visual side and the other working with actors. The Guards, however, said Charles, "really do everything together, including working with the actors. I think its important to [consistently work in tandem] so as not to confuse the actors."

"When I run out of juice, Charles takes over," quipped Tom, "But, having said that, we really work together the whole time."

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