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🎬 Directed by Luke Radford, co-produced by Simply Thrilled and Modular Films
🖤 Backed by the Violence Reduction Partnership and CYF (Community Youth Foundation)
🌍 Shot entirely on location with a cast of first-time performers
Set across two timelines, it follows Kyla - a teenager caught in the web of gang grooming - and a grieving mother processing the fallout of a fatal knife attack.
Commissioned by the Nottinghamshire Violence Reduction Partnership and CYF, this was a grassroots collaboration from the ground up. Street-cast through Stone Soup Academy (an alternative provision school), the young cast had all experienced exclusion, many with direct knowledge of the world the film depicts.
No script. No sets. Just lived experience, improvisation, and a camera.
Knife crime isn’t just about statistics - it’s about ripple effects.
Hollow tells two sides of the same tragedy. In one thread, Kyla is lured into county lines culture and the illusion of protection. In the other, a family tries to understand what’s been taken from them.
These two stories slowly merge - not through plot twists, but through an unavoidable truth: everyone loses.
Improvised dialogue, roaming cameras, and natural lighting give the film an almost documentary-like feel. But what makes it hit hardest is the cast - especially Charnae Samuels as Kyla, who carries the weight of the story with astonishing presence.
🎬 A 20-minute drama shot with handheld, documentary-style energy
🎭 First-time actors sourced from an alternative provision school
📍 On-location filming across Nottingham homes, streets and youth centres
🎥 Dual timeline edit, with cliffhangers and intercutting tension
🧩 A narrative shaped around real conversations, not just beats on a page
We didn’t just film in the community - we filmed with the community.
🔹 Our casting came from students who had been excluded from mainstream education.
🔹 We brought in experienced mentors and actors (including Jonny Phillips from Titanic and Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods) to work alongside the young cast.
🔹 We made sure everyone was paid, supported and credited.
📽️ Completed film distributed via Million Youth Media Youtube channel
🌍 Racked up over 40k views and tonnes of positive comments
🏆 Performance from lead actor Charnae Samuels hailed as “outstanding”
🗣️ Sparked dialogue in the community
We wanted to do more than raise awareness. We wanted to make something felt - something authentic, uncomfortable, and true.
And we wanted to give a platform to voices often ignored.
If even one young person watches Hollow and sees their own story differently, it’s done its job.
