Watch Neil Maskell in poignant short Lit­tle Monster

We’re big fans of Ran­dom Acts, the Chan­nel 4‑backed short film pro­gramme ded­i­cat­ed to show­cas­ing the best emerg­ing tal­ent. Ear­li­er this year we host­ed the pre­mière of The Baths by Grace Lee, who is not only an impres­sive ani­ma­tor but a top-notch video essay­ist.

Now we’re pleased to share this poignant human dra­ma from Char­lotte Regan, an up-and-com­ing writer/​director from North Lon­don who start­ed out mak­ing no-bud­get music pro­mos for local rappers.

Enti­tled Lit­tle Mon­ster, the four-minute film stars Neil Maskell (Kill List, Utopia) as a new­ly incar­cer­at­ed father who uses his one phone call to chat to his young daugh­ter back at home. Maskell also fea­tures in Regan’s oth­er short from this year, Dodgy Dave, as well as Ben Wheatley’s lat­est, Hap­py New Year, Col­in Burstead, which is cur­rent­ly tour­ing the UK.

Still only 24, Regan has won a BFI Future Film award and is already in devel­op­ment with iFea­tures for her first full length film, Nan, which you can read more about here. Here’s what Regan had to say about the inspi­ra­tion behind Lit­tle Mon­ster, and cast­ing Maskell:

“I’ve had a lot of fam­i­ly in and out of prison. Been in to vis­it mates. And sit­ting in them vis­it­ing rooms you’d have no idea that these peo­ple have done some ter­ri­ble crimes. Because most of them are sat there embrac­ing their fam­i­ly, telling their part­ners how much they love each oth­er. It’s an hour or two where they for­get where they are and are at their most vulnerable.

“I think those phone calls are sim­i­lar moments. You try and ignore every­thing around you and focus on the per­son you’re speak­ing to. I’m real­ly aggy about hear­ing the oth­er end of phone calls any­way haha but in par­tic­u­lar with this I just want­ed to be there with this guy. Who may or may not have done some­thing absolute­ly awful to be in the posi­tion he’s in but regard­less we’re expe­ri­enc­ing this call to his daugh­ter with him.

“I think Neil is prop­er incred­i­ble. He’s always been one of my favourite actors; he can just be so open and vul­ner­a­ble with his act­ing. It doesn’t feel like he’s act­ing. I feel like I’m always there with him. I stand behind the cam­era just feel­ing like he is that per­son. That vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that he can access is some­thing I don’t think many actors have. As for why he does low-bud­get short films with me, who knows, maybe I am just dri­ving him mad via email and he’s like, ​‘God, if this is what’s going to get her off my back then I sup­pose I have to.’

“I’ve done about eight shorts now and I only recent­ly real­ly learnt the style I like to work in, the crew I like to work with, the way I like to edit. All of that. I real­ly want­ed to find that out before pur­su­ing a fea­ture. I want­ed to know how to work with a range of actors and non-actors, dif­fer­ent DoPs. Because who knows, on the fea­ture I might not get the peo­ple I want onboard, and I might have to work with entire­ly new peo­ple. But now I at least feel com­fort­able doing that and com­fort­able com­mu­ni­cat­ing my ideas to new peo­ple. Shorts are the best! It’s like a year or two of film school all crammed into a week of mad chaos.”

Lit­tle Mon­ster airs on Chan­nel 4 at mid­night GMT on 15 November.