Tom Swash writer, director, producer
Pola creative consultant
Tom is drawn to films where the form sings as much as the content. Where images and sounds are treated not only as a means of serving the narrative, but work together to create an immediate and visceral cinematic experience. He is greatly influenced by the films of Bela Tarr, Maya Deren and Michelangelo Antonioni, as well as the writings of Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka and Flann O'Brien. His films often deal with themes of isolation and loneliness
Over the years he has developed his own way of working, often casting a mix of both professional and non-professional actors, and incorporating elements of improvisation. In 2017, with his medium length film Pepe: a story of friendship, Tom began working predominantly as a one-man crew. Then in 2018, while on a motorbike trip around Latin America, he made an impromptu feature film in Ecuador which was part fiction, part documentary and part travelogue.
His latest feature Remnants of Boo was awarded a Special Commendation by the LA Underground Film Forum.
Pola is the brains of the operation