Tim has no job, but Tim ‘works’… In the face of mounting internal and external pressure, how far will he go to keep his head above water and protect those he loves?
An unrecognisable George MacKay (Pride, Sunshine on Leith, How I Live Now) plays TIM in BYPASS, filmed by Duane Hopkins (Better Things). The feature (final edit and sound work completed in January 2015), exposes the brutal facts of life for young people with no job and no support – the release in cinemas will chime with the run up to the General Election.
BYPASS is a thriller with a conscience – based on hard research (references below). The feature tackles issues that have been maligned under the banner ‘Broken Britain’ and examines the real cost to those of our youth who are rootless and disenfranchised at best and frantic and depressed at worst.
Before writing BYPASS, Hopkins set the film’s characters and storylines in credible research: one of his main contacts was Professor Rob MacDonald of Teesside University, co-author of Poverty and Insecurity: Life in Low–pay, No–pay Britain. Hopkins went on to conduct his own methodical research amongst the young, vulnerable and fringe elements of society – interviewing in hostels and key support organisations.
