The disease is not the only thing that has been on the rise or what people should be worried about. Violence of all sorts is as well. Especially that in the household. Being at close quarters all the time with no where to escape to has led to a rise in domestic violence as well as child abuse.
Child abuse is a silent yet deadly thing. Usually you don’t know it is going on until it is too late. Until the child is killed. The lucky ones get out while most don’t.
British filmmaker Alexander Black (first film) has written and directed a short film (just under 16 minutes long) which deals with this topic. Knowing that going in you should not be surprised that this is a rather dark film. In tone, subject and look.
Two detectives, Mark Kessler (Paul Duncan – Miss Julie, The Grandisons) and John Mills (Stephen Clark – Susan) have been assigned a case which involves child abuse. They seem to have caught their man (Daniel Knight – appeared in episodes of Call the Midwive and Emmerdale) and set about questioning him concerning the disappearance of one of the children whose photos were on his computer.
The case does not really focus on the child pornography, as they already have their man, rather they are tasked with finding a young girl in a believed case of child abduction. Getting nothing helpful from the man, it seems like they are going nowhere, so the intense Kessler begins to go to any length necessary to locate the child.
Law and justice. Two very different words with two very different meanings. And yet we seem to use them indiscriminately. They are not interchangeable. Law is the set of rules society is governed by and justice means to be moral or to be just in your maintaining of laws. Black’s film sets out to show the distinction between the two in a very dark and gritty way. Pointing out that sometimes enforcing the law results in those tasked with such jobs ending up behaving just like the criminals. It is hard to tell them apart. Such is the nature of the beast.
Lycanthropy has been screened at almost 30 film festivals so far and has picked up 9 awards.
