'Cockney- Irish' director wins Waterford award
‘Billy & Lilly Go To New York' has been awarded Runner up Best Feature at the Waterford Film Festival 2009. By Shelley Marsden - 19/11/09
The film is about a British filmmaker whose outspoken condemnatory aggressive style got him and his courageous camerawoman Lilly Starr shot to death on the streets of New York. Screened to a full house, the audience reaction was amazing.
In 2008, whilst receiving an award for his first feature film 'Lunatic' at a prestigious NY Film Festival, film director Bill Maloney decided, because of his gritty working class roots, to bypass the festival glitz, in favour of shooting a documentary about the under privileged and homeless people of New York and Harlem - and the effects of the US health system in comparison to that of the homeless on the streets of London, illustrating the dangers of losing the UK National Health Service and the loss of civil liberties.
'Billy & Lilly Go To New York' is a drama documentary filmed in London and New York. A film depicting the story of a passionate British filmmaker whose condemnatory, outspoken, aggressive style got him and his courageous young camerawoman Lilly Starr shot to death on the streets of New York.
A gun was pulled on Billy on the streets of Harlem but Billy and Lilly stood their ground, they held their nerve ignoring the terrifying threat; Maloney quoted: “There goes a sick man and an angry man!”
He went on, “I’m not threatened by my own people; I was brought up in Brixton, Peckham and Lewisham”. But it wasn’t the gun of the ‘angry man’ that took the life of these filmmakers.
‘Billy & Lilly To New York’ screened its World Premier to a full house at the Waterford Film Festival 2009. View Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeS5fV-ygt0&feature=channel_page.
The Maloney Family scrimped, saved and turned down a £1.4 million budget from a Soho production company who wanted artistic control on their first feature. They progressed by re-mortgaging their ex-council flat to help create their film company Pie ‘n’ Mash Films. Regrettably, due to the recession, the collapse of their film distributors and the major DVD outlets they were left with nothing. Inspirationally, their motto is ‘Keep on punching’.
Visit www.pienmashfilms.com for more.
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