Tolstoy the Delirious

Tolstoy The Delirious is a Kafkaesque absurdist comedy short film, set in a world where all the books have been mysteriously erased, and everyone is trying to rewrite them from memory. Our protagonist, the neurotic Mark, is faced with an impossible task - to rewrite War and Peace, despite having never read it. He is confronted by a sequence of absurd situations, including literary fascists and the undead Sigmund Freud.

The team behind Tolstoy the Delirious are a diverse crew of third and second year Massey Screen Arts students based in Wellington.

• Writer/Director - Keenan Turner has a off-kilter writing sensibility that tackles big ideas in a satirical and absurd way.  This is the third collaboration with producer Ethan Thomas, together they have produced similar films and continue to strive to experiment and provoke.
• Director of Photography - Joel Hodson is experienced behind the camera, having photographed productions, including VFX-based films. He has a precise way with capturing images, optimising the visual style of the film.
• HOD of Sound - is Anaru Rimene who has worked in the sound field throughout his time at Massey. His experience in the field will benefit our project, as he will capture the clarity of our audio which will help bring our project to life.
• Costuming HOD and Production Designer - Shannon Knight is a painter and visual artist, who will bring unique costumes to our characters and create unusual props such as the blank books, ultimately bringing our surreal world to life.
• Editor - Kate Saunders
• Boom Operator - Daniel Maslen
• Gaffer - Thomas Harms
• Best Boy - Ethan Li
• 1st AC - Dylan Jonkers
• 2nd AC - Daemin Warrilow-Cameron
• Script Supervisor - Penelope Lockwood
• DIT - Alfie Rayner
• Storyboard Artist - Wiremu Johnston
• Composer - Sebastien Soong

The funding for this film is primarily intended to support our crew and cast during production. 

This includes:

• Catering to provide our cast and crew with food to get through the shoot days.
• Paying for the services of our wonderful talent.
• Props/Costuming costs.
• Film Festival submission fees.

Tolstoy grapples with some big themes in an absurd way that we hope will reflect the frustration and impossibility that life can present us with. The premise of rewriting War and Peace from memory is impossible, so the question becomes - how does a person respond to such a situation? The cast of characters all behave in their own peculiar ways in reaction to the catastrophic event, some become controlling or nihilistic, whereas others might prefer to hope. There's also the theme of the temporality of human achievement - these books that we have taken for granted for thousands of years, what happens when they are so easily taken from us? We hope that the story will operate on multiple levels, being funny and thoughtful at the same time. 

Follow @tolstoythedeliriousfilm to keep up with updates.

We hope this film will be a unique experience for everyone, showing a different way of making a short film, one that is denser with ideas and pushes expectations  enough so that it may inspire other filmmakers and casual audiences alike. We hope that people will relate to the angst and confusion of the characters in the story, and perhaps be challenged to reflect on themselves.