Sustainability, social awareness and success for Boxgrove film directors

Their latest production ‘Handsome’ is a moving and challenging feature length documentary that follows the journey of two siblings, Nick, a careworker, and his younger brother Alex, who has Down Syndrome, as they travel the world to meet other siblings like themselves and share coping strategies and feelings.

Handsome was premiered at The Glasgow Film Festival at the end of February this year and has been gaining increasing interest from inside the industry ever since.

Louis Theroux considered it: “A beautiful and intimate film. I encourage people to watch it.”

Lorraine Kelly featured it during one of her programmes in March, Jackie Long covered it on Channel 4 News, the BBC listed it on their HomePage as one of the Top 10 Films to watch and in the last couple of weeks Eamon Holmes and Ruth Langsford interviewed Nick and Alex on the sofa for This Morning.

Luke White and his twin brother Edward formed their company Boxclever Media back in 2015.

He says: “We’ve shared a passion for filmmaking since we were seven years old. We’d always have a camera in hand and be out shooting little horror films or mockumentaries. One of our first films was ghost story based on our local Boxgrove Priory, The Girl with the Golden Ringlets.”

The brothers pursued their interest studying film and television production together at the University of York.

“We love documentaries, we want to uncover stories about remarkable people, places and events in the world that might not otherwise be heard,” says Ed.

The boys don’t shy away from controversy and in 2019, a documentary they worked on about the quality of cabin air on board planes was shown at The Raindance Film Festival in the US.

“We’ve worked with businesses to inform their customers about their sustainability and social responsibility projects in a way that engages the public. With the air cabin docu for example our ultimate goal was ensuring passengers get clean air on board while travelling,” says Luke.

It is Handsome that has taken most of their focus recently.

Luke says: “For such a small company, to have made this independently and succeeded in getting a distribution deal from Republic Film Distribution who have previously represented critically acclaimed documentaries such as For Sama is a very proud moment for us.”

Filming Handsome began in 2019 and involved the boys living with Nick and Alex for about a year and a half, learning about their relationship, helping Alex to feel comfortable with filming and documenting an adventure that begins in Cornwall and ends in Hanoi, Vietnam, via New York and Mumbai.

Luke adds: “We were determined to make sure that Handsome is an absolutely honest portrayal of what it’s like living with Downs Syndrome for both brothers. Our hope with this and future works is that we can make a positive social impact, start a debate and help audiences to better understand these issues.”

To find out more and to watch the film, visit: {http://linktr.ee/handsomefilm|linktr.ee/handsomefilm