The third and final workshop of 2013/14 Biennale College – Cinema is coming to an end. After it, the three teams will be ready to start shooting their movies: Blood Cells, H. and Short Skin. And while directors and producers have been discussing with tutors about the main issues of their projects (direction, production, editing, cinematography, distribution…), some castings already began.

The casting of Short Skin is currently being held in Florence, Pisa and Rome. In the meantime, the casting of H. is currently going on as well. It is looked after by Barden/Schnee Casting, a company set both in Los Angeles and New York. It cast movies such as August: Osage County, Dallas Buyers Club, Short Term 12, Winter’s Bone and The Help.

Irish actor Barry Ward plays the main character in Blood Cells. He’s also the lead actor of Jimmy’s Hall, which is the last feature film from Ken Loach (he announced he will direct only documentaries). In Blood Cells he will be a an exiled young man who’s forced to embark upon an odyssey through the broken and beautiful margins of contemporary Britain, after a catastrophe that had destroyed his family and their farm a decade before.

Barry’s preparation for Jimmy’s Hall included everything from historical research to Irish dancing lessons, and one element that has dovetailed beautifully with his preparation for Blood Cells – the protagonists of both films come from rural backgrounds – is the two weeks he spent working on a farm in the West of Ireland.