Moments Like These
"Moments Like These" is a love story about two strangers coming together in a moment of connection, only to discover all isn't as it seems. When unspoken boundaries are crossed and the first morning light appears, reality comes crashing down onto them.''
The story was inspired by life experiences touching on the themes of love, relationships, loneliness - essentially a need for connection. It grew out of a curiosity to explore the process of love and just how quickly and deeply these feelings and need for connection can be uncovered.
It explores something that often feels almost intangible yet is rooted very much in reality - a fleeting feeling that many of us experience yet often struggle to find the words to describe. I wanted to capture moments like these in this short form to encapsulate how fleeting and messy these emotions can be.
After multiple drafts and a year of procrastinating, I finally managed to get a final draft of the script together. In October 2022 I reached out to the director and friend of mine Giacomo Gex, we had a conversation and after having agreed to share creative visions on the story we rewrote and finalised the script together. We also workshopped the script with actress Lyna Dubarry, improvising scenes together and recording these rehearsals so that Giacomo could integrate them into the script. Once this dialogue was added to the script we decided on a deadline, gathered the team and before we knew it we were shooting it over three days in the beginning of December 2022.
Principal photography for the film is now complete. We are currently in the stage of fundraising for the post-production part of the process. The finishing funds will cover the editor, colour grader, music composer, festival submissions and any other technical fine tuning needed for the final film.
The Core Team
JACOB MEADOWS - Producer/Writer/Actor
Jacob is an actor and writer - originally from the West Midlands now based in London, he is currently at RADA studying a 1 year MA in Acting.
His most recent work was on the multi award winning digital theatre feature film 'COLD' a two hander devised alongside Janet Etuk and the team at Open Sky Ahead, which premiered at the London Mime Festival, for which he has won several awards for best actor. Other recent work includes the Bollywood feature 'SAVVY' working alongside Anil Kapoor, the short film 'Skivvy' with Fablemaze prod and walkabouts with Vamos, the UK's leading full mask comapny.
Lyna is an actress and writer of French-Moroccan descent based in East London. She first studied acting in New York City at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, before coming back to complete her MA in Screen Acting in London at Drama Centre – Central St Martins. After graduating from Drama Centre in 2019, Lyna co-produced and performed in a play called Bed Peace: The battle of Yohn and Joko, which had a month run at the Cockpit Theatre in West London and received four-star reviews from The Stage and LondonTheatre1.
Later that year she wrote, produced and starred in Métèque, a 30min film which follows the life of a young Moroccan banker facing the struggles of immigration laws in modern-day London after her visa gets revoked. Métèque received four-star reviews from UK Film Review, Indie Shorts Mag and Heyuguys. The film also won twelve awards at various film festivals around the world (including six Awards for Best Actress) and was part of the Official Selection at BAFTA-qualifying festival BUFF in 2020..
After making her first TV appearance on the second season of BBC1 series Baptiste in 2021, Lyna spent most of the year filming a Series Regular role opposite Vincent Cassel and Eva Green in Liaison, upcoming Apple TV series directed by Emmy Award winner Stephen Hopkins.
Lyna is currently shooting a commercial under the direction of Oscar winner Chloe Zhao and will then spend the next month focusing on making her second short film, Maysîr,which explores the relationship between acculturation and identity amongst second-generation immigrants in today’s Britain, and has won 5 Awards for best screenplay.
GIACOMO GEX - Director/Producer/Writer/Cinematographer
Giacomo Gex is a film director, actor, cinematographer and writer. Raised in Egypt and Spain, half British and half French Giacomo had somewhat of an unusual upbringing which had a tremendous influence on his work. During his early teens the gift of a small camcorder spawned his passion for filmmaking. Giacomo started out by making short form content that led him to explore his passion for storytelling deeper, when he decided to complete an MA at the ESCAC (Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya), the national film school of Spain.
At the age of 21 Giacomo wrote, directed and produced his first scripted short film set in Ibiza, produced in association with the award winning London based production company Passion Pictures. Since then Giacomo has made both narrative and documentary short films that have brought him all around the world, one of which was selected by the acclaimed documentary film festival “Sheffield DocFest” as well as the Sundance Festival sister: Slamdance Film Festival.
Giacomo is currently working on and developing his first feature film script. Since 2017 Giacomo has also been working on his first feature documentary about a young man who has been searching for Japanese buried treasure (famously known as Yamashita’s Gold) in the Philippine jungle for over 10 years. This is expected to be completed and released by summer 2023.
OREKA GODIS - Producer
British-Nigerian Oreka Godis is an interdisciplinary storyteller who began her broadcast career as a live, morning radio show host on The Beat 99.9 before transitioning into consulting for Network News 24, hosting groundbreaking game shows, talent shows and EbonyLife TV's syndicated talk show, Love Lounge.
A former Head of Content Acquisition at iROKO Partners, Oreka has represented African Cinema on many platforms including the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization’s conference on Global Digital Content Market, where she spoke on ‘Sustaining the Film Industry in the Digital Environment’; and Advertising Week Europe’s ‘1.2 Billion Stories from Africa’.
Oreka’s current credits include actor, voice-over artist, writer and producer. Her borderless vision has afforded her the opportunity to work internationally on projects that have premiered on notable grounds such as the Durban International Film Festival, won awards including the Nigerian Entertainment Awards, AMVCA, ELOY, Zanzibar International Film Festival and the British Urban Film Festival.
As a writer, her work often explores themes of identity, belonging, the weight of cultural expectations and acceptance. Oreka is currently working on writing and producing her first feature film.
RICHARD MELKONIAN - Music Composer
Richard Melkonian is an award-winning London based Armenian-British composer who works across concert music, opera, theatre, film and performance art. In 2019 he was one of the Old Vic 12 and finished his MA in Opera Making at Guildhall School for Music & Drama in association with the Royal Opera House. His music investigates his dual heritage, blending the rich Armenian folk and liturgical tradition with a contemporary and British sensibility.
In 2017, his commission by Mahogany Group to write new operatic work, The Finding, with libretto by Zoe Palmer was performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. In 2015, he won the Mary Ryan Award for composition and was also a finalist for the AGBU Sayat Nova Competition where his piece Andastan (Անտասդան) was performed at Symphony Space, New York. He has written scores for several films including Filip Firlej’s award-winning If It Be Love, premiered at the Raindance Film Festival, London 2015, Emma Swinton’s Isabella, and Aaron Leaman’s documentary Looking for Infinity: El Camino.
For theatre, he was Musical Director at The National in Cardiff for 'Hail, Cremation! in 2020. He composed original music for the world premiere of Arthur Miller’s No Villain at Trafalgar Studios in 2016, directed by Sean Turner. He has collaborated with Arab writers Ahmed Masoud as well as Sevan K. Greene on several plays including Nahda, part of Shubbak festival for contemporary Arab arts and literature. His undergraduate degree and Masters in Classical Composition at the Guildhall was made possible by the Guildhall Scholarship Trust. Alongside composition, Richard also studied Jazz Piano with Barry Green.
