SEEDS OF LOVE
DIRECTED BY ROSCO 5 (BEHNAM TAHERI, GIDEON BERESFORD)
UNITED KINGDOM // 2020
4 MINS
Clearing away the possessions of his deceased fiancé, a man finds some of her nail clippings, and throws them away. But one nail lands in a pot of earth, miraculously spawning the hand of his lost love...and so begins a strange tale of love reborn.
Reflective Encounters
“Many lockdown-shot films feel repetitive and conventional, but the uniqueness of Seeds of Love’s concept brings it towards a more universal space that explores closeness and touch, love and loss with invisible ease and creative delight.
A bereaved man throws his partner’s nail clippings from his balcony in an act of release, but magically, one lands in a plant pot and grows into a living hand. This dreamlike flight of fancy from comedy filmmaking team Rosco 5 (Behnam Taheri and Gideon Beresford) relates the life cycle to the relationship cycle, and features more hands on hot dogs than Portnoy’s Complaint!
It’s evident that Rosco 5 have a background in directing advertisements because of their approach: an extremely precise sequence of shots that puts across so much information about each emotional beat between fairly rapid cuts. The montage of ‘happy endings’ is a particular delight. Just because it’s light of touch doesn’t mean that it lacks profundity - Seeds of Love reaches a surprisingly spiritual conclusion in under 4 minutes, capable of making viewers reconsider their own relationships during our lockdown year.”
— Ben Flanagan
Filmmaker Q&A
A Q&A with filmmakers from the Comedy 1 programme at Encounters Film Festival 2021.
Filmmakers - Benham Taheri & Gideon Beresford (ROSCO 5) - Directors of Seeds of Love, Suki - Director of Mondo Domino and Ida Melum - Director of Night of the Living Dread.
Hosted by Gaia Meucci-Astley, Short Film Programmer.
Director’s Statement
We originally pitched this short during lockdown, as a music video, but the band went with a big name director. This was a blessing really, because it meant that we could team up with the wonderful composer Sam Thompson and do it all our way.
The film stars us, Rosco 5...because we were in lockdown and had to stay safe! It was just us and DoP Anthony Lucas...Gideon plays the man, and Behnam plays the hand.
Ideally we'd have gone for a better looking cast. But we're very proud of what we did with such limited resources, and hope you enjoy it too! x
Filmmaker Bio
We are comedy writer-directors whose work blends perverse observations with the magical and the mundane.
Originally an editor and a producer, we teamed up as writer-directors for our first short film Open Wide in 2018, which premiered at Palm Springs Shortfest and was acquired by C4 Random Acts.
Since then, we’ve been Rosco 5. Our shorts and commercials have screened all over, won a few awards and a couple of Vimeo staff picks.
We wanna make hot-shot big-shot Hollywood movies and be superstars.