BREAKING NEWS!
FILM ROMANCE SWEEPS THE BOARD
AT UNITED STATES WORLD PREMIERE
WHEN YOU TRULY LOVE SOMEONE, YOU CAN’T JUST BE THEIR FRIEND
VOTED
BEST FOREIGN FILM
BEST SHORT FILM
BEST ACTOR
BEST ACTRESS
I Love You Truly has stormed through Virginia in the American South like a filmic tornado, picking up more than a dozen awards in its wake.
The new romance from England’s Encore Films, starring Richard Mark and Charlotte Mark, follows close on the heels of Encore’s 2016 runaway hit musical I’ll Walk with God and its international award-winning 2017 spin-off, Sacred! Music from the Heart.
As well attracting awards for
BEST FOREIGN FILM IAN WOODWARD
BEST SHORT FILM IAN WOODWARD
BEST MOVIE: AUDIENCE VOTE IAN WOODWARD
BEST ACTOR RICHARD MARK
BEST ACTOR: AUDIENCE VOTE RICHARD MARK
BEST ACTRESS CHARLOTTE FROST
BEST ACTRESS: AUDIENCE VOTE CHARLOTTE FROST
I Love You Truly has also harvested a rich crop of other accolades:
BEST SOUNDTRACK ENCORE FILMS (UK)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR STEVE CARROLL
BEST NARRATOR (THE STORYTELLER) SEBASTIAN LYONS
BEST HAIR & MAKEUP DANIELA RIVERA
BEST COSTUMES ANDREA GAMBELL
BEST STILL PHOTOS ISABELLE THOMAS
BEST MOVIE POSTER STEFANIE WOODWARD
BEST CAST
BEST MESSAGE ENCORE FILMS (UK)
“Congratulations to Charlotte, Richard, Steve and Sebastian – each and every one of them is a class act,” said a delighted Ian Woodward on the day. He added: “A big thank you also to the crew whose extraordinary talents contributed so conspicuously to the production’s success. Well done!”
In collecting the awards at the Christian Film Festival, in a Virginian city occupied by federal troops for much of the American Civil War of 1861-1865, writer-director Ian Woodward thanked the festival for recognising a filmic dialogue style that some observers have interpreted as curious and out of the ordinary. “But that,” says the filmmaker, “was always the intention!”
The film’s dialogue makes use of modern rhyming verse to communicate in a novel form the drama of two young people searching for a lifelong soul-mate, a device which was partly the motivation and partly the challenge behind the making of I Love You Truly.
Sometimes the young couple express their feelings in the usual way, by the simple process of talking to each other. But at other times beliefs, thoughts and opinions are conveyed by their own voices being heard over the action as opposed to the expected interplay of one-to-one spoken dialogue.
Above: Filmmaker Ian Woodward going over the next scene with Charlotte Frost and Richard Mark and, far left, production assistant Iliyana Kosteva
The film’s innovative handling of dialogue is a device designed to make the audience think and question filmic convention – indeed, to question chronology and the concept of time itself. In I Love You Truly, for instance, the protagonists often react to statements before the other person has made a statement to react to! Or we see them communicating with the other person without actually speaking to them. And yet onscreen they both understand everything and react to the situation.
What is going on?
Well, it was no accident.
I Love You Truly, musically, was originally a parlour song written in 1901 by the American singer-songwriter Carrie Jacobs-Bond. Five years later she published sheet music for the composition and it sold over a million copies, one of the earliest songs composed by a woman to achieve that distinction. Since then it has been sung at weddings, recorded by Bing Crosby and numerous other artists over the years, and heard on television and in films.
Above: Hair and makeup artist Daniela Rivera with actress Charlotte Frost
James Stewart and Donna Reed are serenaded with a vocal duo rendition of I Love You Truly on their wedding night in the classic Frank Capra fantasy film It’s a Wonderful Life. In the Encore Films production the newly-weds dance to an orchestral waltz version of I Love You Truly, while a funky, party-atmosphere vocal arrangement is heard during the end credits.
Above: Sound supervisor Paul Richardson, filmmaker Ian Woodward and boom-mic operator Thomas Colwill
Above: Production assistant Kathryn Bessant
Above: Charlotte Frost and Richard Mark between takes with director Ian Woodward
Above: Boom-mic operator Thomas Colwill (top), sound supervisor Paul Richardson, actor Steve Carroll (the Vicar) and production assistant Giorgia Andriani
Further screenings are planned for I Love You Truly between the spring of 2017 and early 2018 in countries and continents as far flung as Canada, Israel, Hungary, Argentina, Germany, South Africa, Australia, England, Egypt, Austria, India, Sicily – in fact, Italy generally – and throughout Europe, Scandinavia and the United States.
But as for the fortunes of I Love You Truly…well, we should perhaps heed the thoughts of the Young Man at the beginning of the film. “Time,” he tells us, “answers all.”