Joseph Archer's pinhole camera-style UK feature ‘Snapshot' starring Tom Stourton

Production has wrapped on UK filmmaker Joseph Archer’s privately-financed directorial debut Snapshot, starring Tom Stourton, who co-wrote and starred in 2021 feature All My Friends Hate Me.

The film is about the 19th century inventor of the pinhole camera and has been shot entirely in a 1:1 circle aspect ratio to mimic this style.

The producers are Archer and Cathy Wippell’s UK company Silicon Gothic. Minority co-producers and financiers are Germany’s Fieber Film, India’s TrainTripper and Canada’s Serge Cedrick Films. 

Set in late Victorian London, Snapshot follows five female ghost hunters who believe a set of murders are not being carried out by Jack The Ripper, but by a violent spirit. They attempt to prove their theory by using the new device of a moving image camera.

Wippell co-stars with Hazel Rogers, Lydia Helen, Nadia Lamin, Rosie-Bella Johnson, Ishtar Currie-Wilson and Freya Parks. 

“Thanks to the wild west of the internet, it’s easier than ever to make money from fake news,” said Archer, who used to work as a newspaper journalist. “This is strikingly similar to the unregulated journalism of Victorian society. Through Snapshot, I wanted to create an entertaining genre film which highlights the dangers of the modern manipulation of truth.”

This story originally appeared on our sister site Screen