A Cumbrian film crew are making a movie through community spirit.
Ember Production, a new independent film outfit based in Cumbria, are bringing their first feature length movie to life through community-led film making.
The group are working with local people and communities across the county to support their venture, rather than relying on external funders, and they’ve so far amassed over 150 members of cast and crew.
It’s something that director Szilard Pusztai, from the South Lakes, and producers Attila Németh, from West Cumbria, and Charlie Wilkinson, who is also director of photography, from Leeds, believe is a new style of filmmaking.
Szilard first met Charlie at The Northern Film School, while Attila was a close family friend, and after the pair graduated three years ago, the trio decided to set up Ember Production to carve out their own path into the film industry.
Charlie said: “I think at Uni, me and Szilard were a little bit fed up with the system we were told to go down to get into the film industry.
“Our mindset was, well we’ve got a group of people we’ve met at Uni, if we all come together and pour our passion into this, we will be able to compete with these high budget productions without the money.
“For us it’s all about bringing people together, supporting each other and making some good movies.”
The group’s upcoming movie, N.E.S.T Project, is the first movie of their planned series, The Eight Saga, and is well into production.
It’s a film set in a world where a solar flare causes society to collapse, resulting in a new world emerging under the control of the N.E.S.T organisation, where the illusion of freedom masks a sinister reality.
So far, filming has already taken place in and around Frizington, Whitehaven, Rydal Caves, Hodge Close Quarry and across the wider UK.
Szilard added: “We’ve been working on this for the past three years as well as building up Ember Production, which has a long term plan of building a creative HQ to produce blockbuster movies, starting off in the Lake District.
“We’ve got about 150 members of cast and crew who have come to be involved in it and we’ve also got students involved as we’re collaborating with different schools and colleges.”
Unlike a typical film set where cast and crew clock in and out at the end of the day, Szilard said their cast and crew come together to live and work on shoots for multiple days at a time.
He said: “In 2025 we were doing pre-production and production at the same time, so we would be writing scenes two or three weeks prior and doing two or three scenes a month.
“That would sometimes mean we’d get in touch with a local farmer, see if we can use their land and then we’d go camping with about 40 to 50 cast and crew.
“For three or four days we’d be filming and through the evenings we’ll have a campfire and be cooking food for each other, so it’s got that strong community feel to it.
“It’s almost like a three or four day festival, it is magic and it’s a very different way of film making and we see that, I would say it’s a new style of film making.
“But people love it, because it’s purely about the passion of filmmaking, it’s kind of a movement in a way.
“Some of our cast and crew will travel all the way from Cornwall just to come on our set, because they see and love the magic we create.”
The group said that by making the film as a voluntary project, they’ve also been able to give back and support local people.
Charlie added: “At the moment it’s a volunteer project and we aren’t able to pay people, but what we are able to give is a sense of community and belonging.
“I think people make strong connections with each other on our shoots, it’s more than just working.”
Szilard said the group have a community Facebook page for those who are part of the film and that people will donate items to the set to support production.
The group have had everything donated from cameras to costumes to props, gazebos, tents, and food and transport where needed.
Many actors working on the project are also not professional, but rather people who have always had an interest in the industry.
Szilard added: “What has also worked for us is exchange or services, so we had a local business in Windermere support us with food and in exchange we did a promotional video for them and got our cast involved.
“But there is a great diversity in the people we have worked with so far, we’ve worked with people who are 80 to 90 years old and they never got the chance to do acting or be part of a project or as young as nine or 10 year olds just starting out.
“Some of the best actors come from restaurants or pubs. I work part time in a restaurant in Windermere and I asked some of the staff to come on the project because they said they love movies, but had never had a chance to do anything with that.
“They give some of the best performances, because they have all the passion and life experience.”
The group are hoping to finish filming for N.E.S.T Project by the end of the year and are planning to send the film off to festivals by early next year.
Around 25 scenes have already been shot for the movie out the 50 needed to finish.
Outside of filming, the group are also aiming to set up a base of operations to continue giving back and working with local people while also building up the creative industry opportunities on offer in the North.
Charlie said: “We want to set up a base in the Lake District and do workshops for all ages in things like acting, directing and cinematography to pass our knowledge on and also create teams for making movies in the Lake District.
“We want to be inspiring college kids who don;t know what to do to pursue a career in film or encourage adults who maybe didn’t have a chance to explore their creative side in school.
“The roles in film industry are so diverse, a lot of people don’t realise there would be a job for them within it.
“There are so many life skills that can be translated onto a film set, painter and decorators can so easily be a set designer and someone who works in a pub can easily be an actor.”
You can find out more about N.E.S.T Project here.
Anyone interested in being part of N.E.S.T Project can get in touch with the team via email at, [email protected].
