Rory Aitken (RA): Hello, I'm Rory Aitken. I'm one of the producers of Shifty.

Ben Pugh (BP) I'm Ben Pugh. I produced Shifty with Rory

Eran Creevy (EC): My name is Eran Creevy, I'm the writer/director of Shifty I started working as a runner and an assistant director in the film industry and whilst I was doing that I was looking for inspiration to write my own first film so I took inspiration from stories I'd heard and characters I'd met, and my own life because Shifty has a semi-autobiographical feel to it. And I wrote this story and I condensed it into a 24-hour period and created this film that has now become known as Shifty and that's where the inspiration from the script came from.

Riz Ahmed (RA): The way I got involved was because I knew the production company, Between the Eyes, who made the film because they actually shot my first ever music video for this track called the Post- 9/11 Blues, and I remember they made a really amazing looking video for nothing, for about £400 and they actually wanted to split the costs with me £200 each, so I knew they were interested in doing good work with whatever resources they can get together.

BP: You're just about to watch Shifty which is a film that Rory and I produced on a very low budget. Shifty is an urban thriller but principally it deals with the friendship between two old mates, Chris who is played by Danny Mays returns to his home town Dudlow to see Shifty played by Riz Ahmed who he hasn't seen for some four years, we don't really know why he's been away but that becomes clear later in the film but he comes home to find that Shifty has become a drug-dealer in his absence and has got into some trouble. They spend a day together meeting Shifty's clients, getting into some scrapes, having some laughs and ultimately really Shifty has to decide which direction his life is going to go in and Chris is very influential in that decision. We see how their friendship is resolved and what is important to them in their lives.

RA: The Microwave scheme challenges filmmakers to make films for £100,000 and you're limited, you could make it for less but for no more and it's run by Film London so they oversee the production. We have to go through various stages of applications the last one of which, they call Microschool and that's a week where you spend time with mentors and experience people in the industry who talk you through your film and you try and develop it in various directions to do with the script and the budget and who you're going to get to act in it etc. And then you have to pitch the film to about 10 people on a panel for 15 minutes which is the most terrifying bit of it all and then luckily we were in a position that they offered that to us and so then they gave us half the money and we had to raise the other half of the money and they helped us make the film for that very very low budget.

Jezz Vernon (JV): I'm Jezz Vernon, head of marketing at Metrodome, we're the distributor that picked up Shifty for release in the UK. There's a lot of urban films made, films like Kidulthood, Adulthood, Bullet Boy, and one of the things we love about Shifty is that yes there's themes that evole around drug-dealing, police, but really at the heart of it, it's about two friends getting back together after a long time and really for a movie to effect you and get inside you and really make you think, it's not just about anecdotes, some stories that you've heard, it has to be about two characters or more, really interacting with each other and growing throughout the film and I think that's one of the true secrets of Shifty's success, is that it's just got a wonderful story at the heart of it although it is obviously quite an urban genre film. I think one of the most important things we want to say in these screenings is that cinema can be about so much more than Spiderman and Star Wars and Hollywood blockbusters, there is some really fantastic cinema being made in Britain today and I think Shifty is a fantastic example of that, it doesn't have to be set in London, it doesn't have to be about high-flying culture, it can be set in places you're from, the people in the movie can be the kind of people you know and the kind of stories that the movie focuses on could be familiar to you so we really hope in these screenings that you get an idea of how diverse cinema can be, and you can really enjoy film that comes from right here in the UK, it doesn't have to be an American view of the world.

(RA): Yeah I think that this is a really interesting role in lots of different ways. On the one hand we often have lots of depictions in this world, in the criminal world, or the world of drugs they can be quite stereotypical, they can be types that are portrayed rather than real people. We can either have cartoonised crime capers or slit wrists kind of realism, and I think you've got a realistic tone in this in terms of the ways this character is portrayed. He's not a crack dealer, he's just a guy and this happens to be his job and that was very much the way we wanted to go down with this; this is just the way somebody has made choices, this is the way he earns his living. There's other people's judgement of that, there's his own judgement of that, his own struggle with that and coming to terms with that and being at a crossroads. But then in the bigger picture stepping back, in terms of the context of just cinema, I think this is quite a ground-breaking film in the sense that you've got a lead character from an ethnic minority but that character's cultural background or ethnicity is completely secondary to the storyline. And that's quite new really, if you really think about it, any other lead roles you've had from ethnic minorities, particularly in British film - I think we're quite behind in this compared to the U.S. - they tend to be stories that are issue based, tied in with that character's race in some way, whereas in this story it's kind of touched upon but it's really.that's not what it's about. I think it's about time for that, you know, we're in the 21st Century now and better late than never but I think this is very important in that sense and ground-breaking and hopefully a sign of things to come.

EC: It's about friendship, it's about the love between these two characters and generally it's an optimistic film, it deals with lots of dark issues and you know it deals with dark themes but it's generally an optimistic film so I hope you enjoy it, it's a semi-autobiographical film and this is Shifty.