The Film Made by London School Pupils – 7 HOURS ON EARTH gets its London premiere

Board Pen Productions has today announced that it will release 7 Hours on Earth – an original British teen comedy on demand in the UK and worldwide from the 9th October.

Students, teachers, alumni and friends of South London’s own Graveney School have produced an exuberant independent feature. Directed by TV Director turned English teacher Patricia Sharpe (Growing Up Gay: Friends and Lovers, Schools Out, Rainbow) it is produced by her and fellow Media teacher Andy Lamont, from a screenplay written by Steve Smith. Rob Marshall (BBC, ITV, C4, C5, Sky, Nickelodeon) joined the project as Editor and Sound Designer, also writing the film’s original music and title song ‘7 Hours on Earth’. The film stars many of the school’s students, including Ramona Marquez (Outnumbered) who acts alongside her real-life Dad Martin Marquez (Hotel Babylon) and Karl Queensborough who currently plays the lead role in Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre. Many of the young cast are unknowns but since the filming some have taken their first steps into acting careers.

Shot in 4K and crewed by determined students, the film re-works Shakespeare’s classic ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’ into a wildly entertaining school caper with a twist of Science Fiction.

When aliens download into a school, they must try to make sense of teenage love. It baffles them but they use their super-powers to invent an app to try to make everyone happy. As they have never had emotions or bodies before, they unfortunately make everything much worse. All this happens in 7 hours in the run-up to a dreadful school play which threatens disaster. Inspired by Shakespeare’s most chaotically comic work, this crazy, bitter-sweet film captures the pain of young relationships and adolescence from students who are currently living it.

Director Patricia Sharpe said: “It was really hard graft and great fun to shoot. Then in the editing we realised a miracle had occurred – up to then we were thinking ‘Have we actually got anything here?”