MOUNTAINS LIKE FIVE FINGERS

'Mountains Like Five Fingers' is based on a short story by Hemingway but with a contemporary twist: a young couple holidaying in the paradise island of Cyprus, she wants an abortion, he doesn't, she leaves on a bus, he decides to climb to the peak of the mountains.

MOUNTAINS LIKE FIVE FINGERS on IMDb. (Seed & Spark, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns will be launched in February 2025.)

PLOT SUMMARY

MOUNTAINS LIKE FIVE FINGERS is the story of a young American couple holidaying in the paradise island of Cyprus. She wants an abortion; he doesn’t. As the couple wait for the shuttle bus to take them to the airport to return to the United States, they sit uneasily in a tavern overlooking the Kyrenia mountain range. Their dialogue is tense, allusive, confrontational. As the couple sit amidst this majestic and ancient landscape, the viewer is reminded that their problem is in fact insignificant in the big picture.

The story is based on Ernest Hemingway's short story ' Hills Like White Elephants'.

Tagline: She wants an abortion; he doesn’t.

Logline: A young American couple holidaying in the paradise island of Cyprus. She wants an abortion; he doesn’t...

Campaign: A crowdfunding campaign for MOUNTAINS LIKE FIVE FINGERS, an independent short about a young couple discussing abortion; she wants an abortion; he doesn’t...

The story is based on Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ but with a contemporary twist. It explores the knotty conundrum of gender roles within a relationship and it examines attitudes to parenthood and abortion. The couple loves each other but in different ways.

What is the story?

A young couple makes efforts to communicate even though it is a huge struggle for they genuinely care for each other. They love each other, though in different ways.

Though it revolves around Tod and Savana, at the end of their holiday in Cyprus, the story hinges on the complexities of relationships as they grapple with tough decisions. Set against the backdrop of the Pentadactylos mountain range, the film delves into the intricacies of gender roles and the challenging societal expectations of perceived ideas of masculinity and femininity, paternity and maternity, dependency, and autonomy as they discuss having an abortion.

Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’

Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ the film shows how dense and contradictory life is. It captures the struggle of communication, love, and the profound impact of life's dilemmas. The couple’s love does not bring about a solution for what they want from each other, or themselves. The story also delves into the subject of creativity for Tod, who is a writer, knows that he can use his sorrow that he now knows.

Your support will bring to life this thought-provoking exploration of love, identity, and the creative process, elevating a timeless narrative to the screen.

We suggest an active intervention in the old and existing belief systems about women. We reversed the protagonists' wants, empowering women compared to the original Hemingway story; Todd wanted the abortion, and Sevana wanted to keep the baby.

The story setting is the Mountain Like Five Fingers in Cyprus.

What is the setting?

Sevana continues to look at the mountains.

SEVANA: It looks like five fingers.

TOD: That’s why they call it Pentadactylos or Beşparmak which means five fingers.

Tod drinks his coffee.

SEVANA: Thanks for the Greek and Turkish.

The mountain range which is roughly 175 km in length, and runs parallel to the North coast of Cyprus, is over 200 million years old. There are countless legends of how of how a particular part of the range came to be known as Five Fingers Mountains.

Five Fingers Mountain becomes a crucial element in Tod and Sevana's narrative. Amidst this majestic and ancient landscape, the viewer is prompted to recognize the insignificance of their personal struggles in the grander scheme of things.

Filming in the authentic location of the Five Fingers Mountain is imperative for our international crew. The dialogue between Tod and Sevana, exploring the linguistic richness of the region, takes on a genuine quality when set against the backdrop of this ancient mountain range. The landscape not only visually enhances their narrative but also symbolically underscores the transient nature of their personal emotional dilemma, providing a compelling and authentic cinematic experience.

Why this story and why now?

The story is inspired by the #metoo and my family stories. Women are enculturated to be perfect in some areas and they have ingrained "powerless" narratives/belief systems in others. This is a 2-sided coin, those narratives make belief systems by creating opinions about themselves and often give power to others. Women carry the narrative and behave accordingly. They use the narrative mirror to view the world i.e. they can’t see outside this belief system. They do change when this gets painful.

Also, Hemingway's stories went into the public domain last year. We change Hemingway's and his era's main narrative.

Tod: Hector Moss

Born in London, Hector started learning the violin aged 7. In 2014 he graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music were he worked on the feature films 'Anna Karenina', and 'Hummingbird'. Hector then trained as an actor with Giles Foreman at the GFCA in Soho, graduating in 2016. Hector is now a Co-founder and Development Executive at Paradox House.

Sevana: Anastasia Argyrou

Anastasia (Stacey) Argyrou, a Cypriot actor and educator, currently resides in the United Kingdom, where she works as a Drama and English teacher in a secondary school. A distinguished alumna of the prestigious Stella Adler Studio, she was last seen on stage in London in May 2023 in a compelling rendition of Shakespeare's "The Tempest."

Beyond the stage, Anastasia's artistic prowess extends to playwriting, directing, and producing. Notably, she showcased a production of her original short play, "Lost in Translation," presented in collaboration with New York's Greek Cultural Center and TEAM Theatre, a US-based theater company.

Anastasia's theatrical repertoire includes roles such as Hermia (Midsummer Night’s Dream), Phoebe (As You Like It), Mary Warren (The Crucible), and Clairee (Steel Magnolias). Anastasia has also been in numerous short films, filmed and produced in New York City and has been awarded Best Actress 2019 (GCC) for her rendition of Sandrine (Almost, Maine).

Yaz: Reya Karayalcin

Reya Karayalçın, born in 2007, found her love for performing through school plays, showcasing her talent by landing significant roles like the Grand High Witch in Roald Dahl's 'The Witches.' Now focused on her IGCSE studies, she's stepping into film acting, aiming to leverage her stage expertise for the camera. With her passion and commitment, Reya is set to leave a lasting mark in the world of screen acting.

Director: Saruhan A. Sari

Saruhan A. Sari is a film and television production graduate and holds the position of Tech Ops Lead, Head of Studio Operations and Lead Director for TRT World at TRTs London studios. TRT is an international live news broadcasting network that broadcasts live news and prerecorded programming to over 185 countries.

While at university, Saruhan won 2 film festival awards, including an award for the London Olympic Committee for works he produced and directed.

After graduating, Saruhan took a job in Belarus as Lead Director of the Special Projects Department for World of Tanks, an online gaming platform. His main responsibilities were to produce, write, and direct entertainment style documentaries, mainly in South East Asia, and produce weekly highlight shows.

From there, Saruhan moved to Istanbul, Turkey, where he held the position of Director at TRT world, directing both live broadcasts and prerecorded programming. After 6 years in Istanbul, Saruhan was transferred to TRT Worlds London studios to head the studio operations. His main responsibilities are managing the technical and studio operations, directing all live and prerecorded programming, and aiding in the creation of new programming.

Saruhan has also been involved in other filmmaking genres, including short films, one of which won an award, music videos, promotional videos, and animated content.

Screenwriter: Selma Karayalcin

Screenwriter - Casting Director - Producer: Selma Karayalcin (CY, UK)

Selma Karayalçın was born and grew up in London, England, and moved to Cyprus in 2000. She earned a Ph.D in English Literature, has published academic articles and fiction, and teaches courses in English literature, theatre and creative writing. Selma began writing screenplays in 2017 and has recently completed her fourth one, "Poet’s Corner," based on a true story: In early ‘80s London, a precocious girl and her sister, steal drugs from Jamaican dealers to pay their mother’s debt to violent gangsters -- with catastrophic consequences. 

She was awarded a prestigious Hemingway Research Grant in 2019 to support her research on her screenplay “The Hemingways” (now held in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the JFK Library). She is currently working on a screenplay called “Peace to you too, Brother” about the unsung hero: the consequences of an American teenager's refusal to serve in the Vietnam war.

Music by PORCELAIN

https://www.porcelainmusic.co.uk

Producer - Story Consultant & Script Editor: Niki Lambropoulos (GR, UK)

Niki Lambropoulos was born in Ancient Olympia, Greece. She studied screenwriting in Los Angeles and London and transferred her skillset to the creative industry from Digital Humanities, Human-Computer Interaction. Her writing communicates the meaning and emotion of the story via powerful emotional roller-coasters, great conflict, and modern storytelling structures as well as awareness and experience of diverse social structures and worlds. She merges history and past with present, reality and future in the way we experience them. She is a member of The Writers' Guild of Great Britain and WIFT Greece, and an award winner, finalist, and semifinalist in international screenwriting contests and film festivals. She teaches creative storytelling and project methods in education at the University of Patras, Western Greece. She engages in several filmmaking stages.

Director of Photography, Cinematographer, Camera & Electrical Department: B. Vedat Balta

B. Vedat Balta. After completing Macka Technical High-School Department of Journalism, he entered Trakya University Department of Radio and Television Broadcasting with a degree.

Worked in Ekip Film Company, one of the renowned firms in Turkish Movie market, starting from the first year of his university education he worked for 4 years as a camera assistant. While studying in the university the film he directed was awarded the Best Director and Best Short Move by the Trakya University Short Film Festival in 2001. He took parts in various films, serials and documentaries within the camera department from 1999 to 2009. Examples of serials include; Acemi Cadi (Turkish version of “Sabrina”), Kurtlar Vadisi (The most popular serial in Turkey), Ekmek Teknesi, Kursun Yarasi and some others. Examples of movies include; Hitit’s, Throne of the God’s Nemrud. Examples of movies include (which were also released in Germany and UK to the Turkish population); Vali, Ayakta Kal, Ben ve Roz’un Sonbahari. He also worked as a Cinematographer in several serials (Yemin, Basarinin Tohumlari) and in documentaries (Bir Cocuk Doguyor).

He went to several different countries (Brazil, Ukraine, Dubai, Bahrain etc.) for advertisement of Philiph Morris, Lipton, Uni Lever, Vi-Ko, Bijan etc. He worked with Reuters, NOS, ZDF, YLE for documentary and news.

He is very well educated and experienced his technical information and artistic style will be an aesthetic perspective for the movies. His speciality is in Drama and Documentaries.

Graphic Designer: Sidd Danis

Sidd Danis is a Greek artist living in the UK (Deipnosophist). He experiments with diverse artistic and self-expression media such as transmedia, images, music, writing, and acting. He has participated in international exhibitions with installations and also works in the film industry as a music composer, in the art department, and in voice acting.

Editor: Daniel Valenti

Dan..

Impact of your contribution

The impact of your contribution is enormous and multifaceted. Your contributions will help the local young talents advance and break into the industry. They will also be used for makeup, costume design and hair, rent professional cameras and audio equipment, cover transportation and catering, lighting, and post-production services such as editing and music composition, all created by young local talents, and university students. And lastly, they will be used for film festival submissions.

In addition, the MOUNTAINS LIKE FIVE FINGERS story discusses the issue of abortion.

If the entire funding will not be achieved, the short film will be developed as a teaser to attract further funding.

Other than the emotional satisfaction of taking part in the MOUNTAINS LIKE FIVE FINGERS universe creation, the entire process will be documented. There will also be posters and production videos with crew members' interviews sent to the contributors.

There will be high risks and challenges. As we have overcome similar hurdles before, open-source film software production management Milanote will be used to ensure that every penny is well spent and added value has come out of it, whatever the total funding. What is the greatest impact we can produce with every cent?