Full Cannes Film Festival Coverage

Amid all the wealth and glamour of the Cote d'Azur, a British zombie movie made for just £45 could be the surprise success story of the Cannes Film Festival.

The festival opened with Up, the new 3D animation from Disney-Pixar, the budget for which was reported to be in the region of £75 million, but Colin, directed by Marc Price, has already caught the eye of distributors in the Cannes film market.

Price, originally from Swansea, but now living in London, has no formal training in film-making and said he picked up most of his skills from DVD extras, such as directors' commentaries.

Now two Japanese companies have made bids to distribute the film, and Price is hoping for more offers after screenings at Cannes this week.

"It cost us about £45, which was spent on a crowbar and some tapes," Price said.

"We wanted to focus on story and character, and rely on that to hook the audience."

The film puts an unusual slant on the zombie genre, telling the story from the point of view of a zombie trying to understand what has happened to him, rather than a human trying to escape and survive.

"The ultimate goal was rather than going for screams, we wanted to try to move the audience, to try to get them to cry, get a real emotional response from them," Price said.

"We wanted to try to avoid what other films had done, which is why we began doing it from the zombie's perspective."

Colin was shot on camcorder in Swansea and London over 18 months, and the film-makers persuaded actors and make-up artists to donate their services for free to create the necessary blood and gore.

"Cast-wise we had over 100 people and I'm still not quite sure how that happened," Price said.

"They were friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, and none of them were paid.

"Lots of them were just like, 'Hey, I'd love to be a zombie', so we said, 'If you want to be a human too, bring a weapon of your choice'.

"That's the beauty of the end-of-the-world scenario — people just grab whatever they can find and use it as a weapon."

The Colin team is showing the 97-minute movie at the Marche des Films — the vast conference centre attached to the main festival hall, where film-makers vie for the attention of studio and distributor executives.

"It's a bit weird to be at Cannes," Price said. "It's just a movie shot on a camcorder and I have no delusions that's all it is, but it's nice people watch it and it's nice to see it play with an audience."

The 30-year-old, who works for a courier firm in London, said he hoped Colin would at least show his potential and maybe attract more money for his next project.

"The next film we would like to make is set in a World War Two bomber, a Handley Page Halifax," he said.

"Seven guys returning from a bombing mission over Germany and a creepy limpet-like creature attacks them.

"We wanted to do a metaphorical movie creature, but we wanted it to look like Saving Private Ryan in a sewer tank for the first part, where the guys are in this bombing mission.

"We were thinking of going for big bucks for this one, maybe a hundred quid."

Colin has yet to find a distributor, but the trailer on the website www.colinmovie.com shows what a £45 zombie film looks like.

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