Making waves in the film industry

This year has been very busy for BA (Hons) Film graduates Jed Tune and Glen Kirby thanks to their successful film production company, Jack in the Box Films. 

Earlier this year we caught up with them and found out about their journey since leaving Solent in 2014, setting up their company, and their second full-length feature film, The Pugilist. Since then, the film, and company, has been going from strength-to-strength.  

The Pugilist had its world premiere at the European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin, and was nominated for two awards at the Edinburgh International Film Festival - The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film and The Award for Best Performance in a British Film. 

“It has been an extremely busy year so far for the team at Jack in the Box Films,” says Jed. 

“We're currently in development/pre-production for three feature films which we’ll look to shoot over the next 18 months. Earlier this year we attended EFM in Berlin where we had a market screening for The Pugilist and were subsequently offered an official selection at Edinburgh International Film Festival thanks to Festivals Deputy Artistic Director, Diane Henderson.  

“Having The Pugilist even selected at such a prestigious festival was incredible news. We were in Malta looking around the film studios where films such as Gladiator, Troy and Assassins Creed were shot when we got the news it had been nominated in the two categories. That night we went to our local gin bar and celebrated!  

“This is a big accomplishment for our company given we were less than two years graduated from University when we completed the principle photography on the project!” 

The Pugilist, a story about a family of boxers trying to connect with one another following a tragic event, was the brain child of writer/director Glen, who used his experience of competing in unlicensed boxing in his youth as a basis for the film.  

“Glen has a great passion for telling stories that centre on family themes embedded in reality,” says Jed. 

“It’s not so much the raw/gritty approach that some British filmmakers take but one in which we believe something like this (whatever the subject matter) could happen to any of us if we made just a few wrong or rash decisions. 

“Of course Glen has a passion for genre films as well, so he always looks to add aspects to the story that make for commercially viable projects that could in turn travel to the various platforms in the territories throughout the world.” 

The film, which is planned to be released globally over the next five years, will be released in the USA on 22 August on select digital platforms, and later on in the year in the UK. 

Jed and the team at Jack in the Box Films, have been travelling the world this year as well: “After Berlin, we went Malta for a week’s recce for a feature film we're set up to do with Michael Flatley later this year; we had produced a short film for Mr Flatley last year and flew to Dublin a few months ago to oversee the post-production. 

“We also screened short film Till Forever at BAFTA, which was a great opportunity. Late in May we attended Cannes to follow up on our first feature, Off-Piste, which is currently performing well globally.

"We’ve also been bringing together our international partners for the upcoming features we're producing as two thirds will be international co-productions (UK, Malta, Ireland, and Canada).” 

Jed adds: “We're happy with the growth of our company thus far and are streamlining to focus on international co-productions from 2018 onwards!”