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Academics involved in film being screened

13 April 2015

 

A film produced by a Teesside University academic which made its debut screening at the 2014 Venice Film Festival last autumn can now be seen in Middlesbrough.

Duane Hopkins’ thriller BYPASS, produced by Teesside University Senior Lecturer in Media Production Samm Haillay, will be screened at Middlesbrough Town Hall Crypt when it is transformed into a cinema for the evening at 6pm on Thursday 23 April. The film exposes the brutal facts of life for young people with no job and little support. Shot in Tyneside, director Hopkins based the film’s characters and storylines on contact with Teesside University Professor Rob MacDonald, co-author of Poverty and Insecurity: Life in Low-pay, No-pay Britain. Hopkins went on to conduct his own research looking at vulnerable and fringe elements of society, interviewing in hostels and support organisations. Professor MacDonald said: 'Duane was interested in serious academic, sociological research about young people growing up in Britain's poor neighbourhoods, in all its details and nuances. I can see the sociological reality of what we have uncovered over years of in-depth, close up research reflected in BYPASS.' The film has also been screened at the London Film Festival more recently in New York as part of Film Comment Selects.

Watch the trailer for BYPASS

Buy tickets for the Middlesbrough screening

School of Arts & Media factfile Teesside is the only University in the Tees Valley offering art and design courses – everything from traditional pathways to new and innovative programmes in indie games, fashion and textiles. All courses are based on the town centre campus where there has recently been £250m investment and international art gallery mima is now part of the University. Graduates have gone on to top positions in companies such as Aston Martin, Philips, F1, Dreamworks and Marvel Comics. Contemporary partners include Dance City and Hyper Island.


 
 
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