A HollyShorts Casestudy
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: G.S.W.
Genre: Drama.
Date: August 2nd 2025.
Director: Jonny Durgan.
Producer: Harvey Ascott and Mark O’Sullivan.
Writer: Jonny Durgan.
Cinematographer: Ruairi O’Brien.
Production Company: DLNQNT Productions.
Budget: £13,000.
Financing: DLNQNT and Exec Producer Thomas Atherton from FATCONTMAN.
Shooting Format: Digital.
Screening Format: 2K.
World Premiere: Sept 2025 at The Shortest Nights Festival.
Awards:
– Best Supporting Actress at Richmond International Festival, Best Film Nominee at Worcester.
Website
The Official Trailer for “G.S.W.”
Watch The Trailer for “G.S.W.” Directed by Jonny Durgan
A Brief Bio. of “Jonny Durgan”
Genius. Legend. Saviour of Advertising. These are just some of the things that I have never been called. However, I have worked in some great agencies and with some amazing clients. I even managed to pick up a few gongs along the way.
The “Jonny Durgan” Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Jonny Durgan (JD): G.S.W. is the story of Beth. Who is a Paramedic dealing with a victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. However, the situation escalates when news comes over the radio of a school shooting nearby. The same school her son attends. The shooter is still on the loose, and he matches the description of the man on the stretcher.
The spark for this story came when my mum was telling me about her time as an A&E nurse. And, how she handled life-or-death situations. In the days before mobile phones. She had to deal with family members searching for loved ones after motorway pile-ups, accidents and heart attacks. I was writing, and now that I am a parent with a young family. I have fears that are never far away. It struck me what I would do if my children were ever in a situation and I couldn’t help them.
It led to this idea of a medical professional being tied down. While their child is in danger in an escalating situation, and being unable to do anything to help them. And G.S.W. was born.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Jonny Durgan (JD): The film’s debut is at The Shortest Nights festival in September. It has since been in eleven festivals – including Oscar, BAFTA and BIFA festivals – in just a few weeks. It feels quite overwhelming, because you never know how your work is going to be received. And, for it to connect with a global audience has been amazing. We entered them with no expectations, and now it’s shaping up to be a great run. We plan to push for the 2026 festivals, and we’ll see what happens and how far it goes. But it’s been thrilling so far.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Jonny Durgan (JD): Beth and Jo are two paramedics. They are called to a gunshot wound victim who appears to have shot himself, but the situation escalates when news of a school shooting nearby comes over the radio, the same school where Beth’s child goes. Beth wants to attend the scene, but they can’t. However, things get worse when the news comes over the radio that the shooter is still on the loose, and he’s matching the description of the bleeding man on their stretcher.
Beth reacts like any parent; she wants immediate answers, forgetting all about her professionalism and her standards. When she doesn’t get the answers, she quickly goes for retribution, letting him die on the stretcher, only for the last message from the Dispatcher to be that the suspect has been arrested. The man on her stretcher was actually a hero; he tried to stop the shooter and was shot. How will Beth and Jo react?
Development & Financing?
Jonny Durgan (JD): This was an original idea loosely based on the stress-inducing stories from my mum’s time as an A&E nurse. The structure of the story is inspired by the idea of ever-increasing stress, taking cues from “Uncut Gems”, “Boiling Point”, and “The Bear”, where each passing minute adds another layer of complexity, thinking it can’t get any more stressful. And then it does. The script in the first draft is mostly intact as what is now in the film, barring a few tweaks and the actor’s interpretation on the day. Once it was in a place I was happy with, I showed it to a few trusted people before getting Harvey Ascott and Mark O’Sullivan, our Producers, involved.
They came on board with their contacts and expertise, and we secured finance from an investor named Thomas Atherton and his company Fatcontman, and we were ready to go. All we needed was a cast, and we struck gold. We sent the script to Genevieve O’Reilly’s agent, and she immediately said yes. We were so fortunate with her timing, as we managed to sneak the shoot in between her press commitments for Andor and shooting a drama in Australia. And everything fell into place from there.
Production?
Jonny Durgan (JD): It started with a script written in my attic spare room. I did a draft, and got it into a good place and ready to show some trusted people. After nervously watching people turn pages, it seemed to land well and get the same emotional reaction you get from the final film. One of those was Harvey Ascott and Mark O’Sullivan at DLNQNT Films, we have worked together a number of times over the years and I made my previous short, Somewhere I’ve Been, with them.
They jumped on board straight away. From there, it was about raising money. I had met Thomas at FATCONTMAN before through a friend, and I pitched him our film and he agreed to come on board as Exec Producer and help us with a chunk of finance. Now we had everything in place apart from the Cast. That’s when we approached Casting Director Emma Garrett, who is just fantastic. I sent her a list of five names titled “People we will NEVER get, but can you try” and Genevieve O’Reilly was on that list. Once she read it, it was remarkably quick.
She jumped on a call within a couple of days of reading it and said she wanted to be a part of our film, Andor was about to come out and her schedule was filling up. I imagine that her agent has been fielding calls from everywhere, yet she chose us. She gave us a window of a week in May in between a Press Tour and a shoot in Australia, naturally I said that’s no problem. As soon as I logged off the call, I rang the Producer in a panic. But we managed to pull it all together in time.
We had a one day shoot on the 22nd May 2025, with a table read and costume fitting the day before. The strength of this script is that it is all based in one location. We didn’t have to contend with unit moves, or large setups. But we had to be economical and work at speed to fit everything in. Luckily, we didn’t need lots of takes. Genevieve, Kya and Duncan knocked it out of the park, they were one-take-wonders and I hardly gave any notes, it was just mesmerizing to watch them work.
Once the shoot was done, we had no release plan, other than entering festivals and seeing what happened. It never entered our minds that we would be accepted into any! It was just a hope, but our aim was to make it for the late-year BIFA and BAFTA festivals. So we had to get moving. We went straight into the edit with Olly Morgan at Marshall Street Editors. He weaved his magic and called me in a few days later, we only made very minor tweaks to what he had done but we had the edit locked in early June and into Post-Production.
Rascal Post Production House kindly took us on board and we did pretty much everything with them – sound design, mix, grade, the music – they really took our project to the next level, every time they did something it just added another layer. They were superstars and we wouldn’t have a film if it wasn’t for them. By early August, we were done and we were off on the festival circuit.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Jonny Durgan (JD): We didn’t really start off with any kind of strategy, we aimed for the BIFA festivals to start with due to them mostly being UK based, we had no expectations really. Then we had some really early success, almost accepted into every festival we entered. After that we thought we might as well have a go at some of the larger UK and US festivals, and again, we’ve had a lot of success quite quickly. From our early September premiere to in early November, we’re into twelve festivals including Oscar and BAFTA qualifying festivals so we’re amazed and pleased with how the film has been received.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
Jonny Durgan (JD): I guess the only piece of advice is tell the story you want to tell and the rest will find its own way. We have suddenly found some buzz behind us because, I think, we had a compelling story. It’s always noticeable when someone is playing to the juries, and it always feels manufactured to me. The best stories are personal ones or start with an emotion within you, so start there. So I’m thrilled that our film has found an audience and has supporters, and I hope that it connects with so many more during its festival run and beyond.
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