DAY OF THE JACKAL

Jacqueline Wright and Alice Lowe have been making films together since ages ago. But loads of people have never seen their films, or at least have never seen all of them. So they decided to make this website featuring all of the stuff they have done together, plus a whole new bunch of films, one for every month of 2010, featuring some of the best and most interesting comedy performers around. (Check out our ‘Calendar’ page for the films so far…)

Hence Jackal was born. Damien of ‘The Omen’ was born of a jackal, and we hope to give birth to some truly demonic and wicked projects through our new and somewhat paganistic venture. Before 2012 hits and we are all destroyed. (Probably the jackal-headed god Anubis will stand in reckoning).

Doubtless due to the imminent apocalypse, this is an economically difficult time and that has had an impact on the film and TV industry, which means there is a lot of hesitation to take risks on unconventional projects. We don’t care about that. We are going to strive to make innovative and creative films using imagination, the goodwill of many talented people, and some human sacrifice. Every dog has its day. And we are both total dogs.

Oh yes, and Jackal is half Jacqui’s name and half Alice’s name. But there’s all that Anubis bullshit too which makes us sound a lot more cleverer. This website contains 12 grapes, 3 strawberries, an apple and loads of love and giving. Also some piss.

Alice and Jacqueline

JACKAL SCREENINGS

The films on this website have screened at lots of places, including: the Cannes Film Festival; Cannes Lions; the Edinburgh Festival; the Rushes ISFF (nominated in the ‘Best Newcomer’ category); the ‘New British Talent’ event in Sao Paolo, Brazil; the ‘New British Talent’ programme at onedotzero; BEV and Warp X Last Laugh scheme, and Brief Encounters (nominated for the BBC Best New Filmmaker Award). In 2009 the very lovely Ben Blaine of Shooting People chose to host a mini-retrospective of the films at the BFI Southbank. Jacqui and Alice have just returned from the ‘Give Me Direction‘ Screenwriting Conference in Dublin, where they showed their films and were in a Jackal Q&A hosted by Sharon Horgan on behalf of the Irish Film Board and the Jameson Dublin International Film festival. Other guests included Bobby Farrelly of the legendary Farrelly Brothers, director Nicole Holofcener, producer Stephen Woolley and ‘Peepshow’ writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. 

JACKAL PRESS

JACKAL ALL-STARS

Jackal Allstars

  • Antony Elvin
  • Simon Farnaby
  • Tom Meeten
  • Steve Oram
  • Shelley Longworth
  • Margaret Cabourne-Smith
  • James Bachman
  • Clare Thomson
  • Justin Edwards
  • Jordan Long
  • Sharon Horgan
  • Sarah Kendall
  • Rosalyn Wright
  • Steve Brody
  • Barunka O’Shaughnessy
  • Scott Brooksbank
  • Richard Glover
  • Rachel Stubbings
  • Katy Wix

TEAM JACKAL

Jacqueline Wright, Director

Jacqueline directs television, short films, commercials and promos.  She trained at the London Film Academy; her tutors included Asif Kapadia, Terence Davies and Andrea Arnold.  She has been shortlisted for the BBC New Filmmakers Award, and has attended the Warsaw International Film Festival with the Script Factory’s Scene Insiders course, aimed at filmmakers making the leap to features.  She is represented by Laura Rourke at Independent and is currently writing a feature script.

Daisy Robertson, Producer

Daisy is the third witch of Eastwick in Jackal terms (she is Cher).  She has had a 12-year career in television production, including working on the pilot of ‘Look Around You’ and producing ‘LifeSpam’.  Quite frankly she’s a shit-hot producer and we love her.  She will be producing the films for our 2010 Calendar project.

Jane Watkins, Composer

Jane trained at Guildhall and is an exceptional musician. She composes for TV and film, and has helped on all of our projects either as composer or producer. We really couldn’t do it without her!

Lucy Bradridge, Designer

Lucy is a flash of colour in a grey world (and she often flashes her colour, much to our delight!). As well as collaborating with us on many projects, she is Cal McCrystal’s right-hand woman, doing costume and sets for TV and theatre.

Nicky Bentham (nee Moss), Producer

Nicky produced Junglophilia for us, but the grown-up world of feature films is her natural habitat.  Last year she co-produced the multi-award-winning feature Moon (starring Sam Rockwell).  She is an amazing producer, and a really good cook.  Her website is here.

Sam Hardy, Camera

Sam is a DoP who operated on Lifespam.  Recent comedy credits include a sketch show for Hat-Trick productions, Screenwipe, Newswipe and some hilarious stuff for Funny or Die. Sam does a lot of entertainment, drama and factual TV too – his website is here.

Jimmy Crippen, Photographer

Jimmy does all our fabulous stills. He’s the new David Bailey. But shh, don’t tell anyone, they’ll all want one. His website is here.

Alice Lowe, Writer/Performer

Alice started doing live comedy, winning the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh festival for her part in Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead. This went on to become the cult hit Channel 4 series Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace in which she starred as Liz. Since then she has appeared in numerous TV comedies such as The Mighty Boosh, Little Britain, Harry and Paul, and Edgar Wright’s blockbuster film Hot Fuzz. She recently toured with Steve Coogan. She has also written LifeSpam for BBC3, Beehive for Channel 4 and is currently working on a feature, The Sightseers, for BigTalk and Film4.

Annemarie Lean-Vercoe, Cinematographer

Annemarie is the genius (we don’t use the word lightly) behind all of our pretty pictures.  Ammas is an amazing collaborator, and trained at the NFTS before working with Michael Winterbottom, among others.  Her website is here.

David Hughes, Editor

David trained at the London Film Academy and has edited the majority of our films. He is brilliant at cherry-picking the funnies and making them even funnier through his pacing – very clever.

Joce Capper, MD at Rushes

Rushes is post-production heaven, and Joce’s passion for film is inspirational.  She is on this list because of the support and generosity she’s given us.  We’re hugely grateful to her, and we expect that the hundreds of other filmmakers whose work she champions each year though the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival feel the same.

Sharon Lock & Simon Whalley, Graphics & Title Design

Sharon and Simon work at Framestore and produced the title sequences of LifeSpam and Junglophilia. They have worked with Chris Morris and Graham Lineham, to name but a few of their collaborations. They are amazingly talented and a lot of fun to boot – spot Simon’s cameo in LifeSpam!

Sarah Tryfan, Web Designer

Sarah is the renaissance woman who built this very small internet empire for us. She is one cool cat, and also turns her hand to theatrical stage management and portraiture. Her website is here.