Written by Tom Deehan on May 19, 2017. Posted in On Location / Production News

Cannes Film Festival 2017: How to Talk to Girls at Parties shot 70s sci-fi entirely in the UK

John Cameron Mitchell’s period sci-fi feature, How to Talk to Girls at Parties will screen this Sunday as part of the ‘Out of Competition’ selection at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Shot entirely within the UK, the film’s locations include Sheffield and London’s Croydon.

FilmFixer facilitated the London portion of the shoot, with the company’s Director, Andrew Pavord explaining: “the shoot was a very welcome homecoming for the story. We were delighted to be able to support the production with some of its most challenging filming. There were quite a lot of cast and crew to manage for these important scenes. The Croydon locations proved perfect and the area was more than able to handle the logistics. We’re all thrilled that Croydon increasingly attracts A-list talent to its brilliant locations.”

The locations in question include Croydon’s College Green and St. George's Walk Shopping Centre, the former of which hosted roughly 80 cast members during the shoot. FilmFixer’s other projects include Lone Scherfig’s war-time drama, Their Finest.

As a US-UK co-production, the film is a collaborative effort between Little Punk and See-Saw Films.

Through the UK’s film incentive programme, features that spend a minimum of 10% of their budget within the country can receive a 25% tax rebate. A similar incentive is also employed for high-end television programmes, with a minimum requirement of GBP1 million spent per broadcast hour.

Adapted from Neil Gaiman’s short story of the same name, How to Talk to Girls at Parties depicts the attempts of two teenage boys to engage the opposite sex in conversation, only to discover that their differences might be of an extraterrestrial nature.

The film features a mix of domestic and international talent, including Elle Fanning, Alex Sharp, Ruth Wilson and Nicole Kidman.

Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman are starring in two films together at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with the other being Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, which shot on location in Louisiana.

A trailer for the film can be seen here.