This month sees the premiere of two short films made by 2025 MA student Louis Cavalier at ArtHouse Crouch End, London. We wanted to celebrate this entrepreneurial creativity and share the details to fill all the seats!
The showings are on Thursday 10th April (Bitter Harmony) and Wednesday 30th April (Birth of a Salesman) both at 7pm.
We caught up with Louis to find out about the inspiration and process involved in making the films and how he got the chance to share them at ArtHouse Crouch End – a former Salvation Army Hall.
(Louis Cavalier credit: Sam Pierce)
Well done on getting your films into a cinema – tell us how you made that happen?
Thank you! ArtHouse Crouch End is just around the corner from me and the manager, Chris, said we could hire the space to show the films. It’s a great venue which has been voted one of the best independent cinemas in London and the screening room we’re using has 90 seats.
You act in these films, have writer and producer credits on both of them, and even a director credit in the case of Bitter Harmony. Congratulations on all this self-started work! Tell us about what inspired the stories.
Birth of a Salesman was inspired by the six months I spent working as a door-to-door salesman in a commission-only job; meaning if I got no sales, I would make no money. In this job, I learnt how important a positive mindset was, as it became clear to me that the ‘high rollers’ (as they would say at my office) weren’t the best salesmen, but those who kept their attitude positive and consistent. I also dealt with the stresses of commission-only pay and it gave me the idea of a film where a failing salesmen’s morality is tested when he needs to buy a birthday present for his daughter.
Bitter Harmony is inspired by the vigorous exercises actors can put themselves through when trying to dig up past trauma in favour of a more truthful performance. In this film, a young student is pushed to her limit by a ruthless acting teacher when an opportunity arises to perform in front of the biggest theatre directors.
We filmed Birth of a Salesman in January of last year and Bitter Harmony in April of last year. Both were filmed in Bristol, where I was living at the time. The former was spread across a four-day shoot whilst the latter was one day. Both films had an amazing crew of about twenty-five filmmakers, and we all worked very hard to put them together so we’re super excited to share them with the world before we enter them into film festivals.
Thanks for sharing your work and ideas Louis! We hope the screenings go well and look forward to sharing what you do next.
The links are open for anyone to book, so bring your family, friends and – of course – industry contacts are very welcome!
Bitter Harmony at 7pm on Thursday 10th April
Birth of a Salesman at 7pm on Wednesday 30th April
Instagram: @bitterharmonyfilm @birthofasalesman @louiscavalier