Mousie

Berlin 1936. Hitler will soon host the Olympics, and the streets are being “cleansed” of Jews and Roma “Gypsies”. Inside a dying Weimar Kabarett club, seven-year-old Roma Helene (Sasha Watson-Lobo) hides in a wardrobe, concealed by tap-dancer Katharina (CJ Johnson) who plans to escape the poison of Nazism and take Helene to America - where everyone is welcome, no matter the colour of their skin.

But Helene won’t rest. Sneaking about unseen, the little mouse sees everything - a dancing devil, a nervous stage-manager, an alcoholic "new age Nazi" comedian. And the arrival of awkward Nazi conscript, Otto (Jack Bennett). Finding his feet as a newly-empowered thug, he clumsily makes a pass at Katharina, but greater jeopardy awaits as he discovers the little mouse. Only the child’s ingenuity and talent will save her now...

Perfused with the music and colour tone of the era, Mousie is about the masks, uniforms and performances people use to wield power – political and sexual – and also to defeat it. At the centre of it all, an innocent little creature without politics or mask: a Roma child, pegged for destruction, offensive to the codes of German society in 1936 by virtue of her colour alone. Mousie is Helene… It is also Disney's mouse, and therefore America… Once the greatest beacon of hope for the refugee.

In focussing on the rise of populism and fascism in the 1930s, and the concomitant racism, casual misogyny, propaganda and brutality, this short film aims to encourage critical scrutiny of the world today, and to leave those who care reaffirmed and galvanized. It is also about the nervous, twitchy "half-men": not quite fully-formed fascists, but recruits emerging from a position of ignorance to a position of false superiority. And while masks and costumes shade the innocent and clothe the brute, art is a weapon of hope in smart hands. Like fear, talent knows no racial boundaries, its power brightest in the hands of a determined child...

With two female characters predominant, every character in Mousie is intended to be a slightly awkward or vulnerable eccentric with “baggage” - someone trying to escape the abyss, or someone halfway into it. With our casting director - former agent Michelle Holmes - rising to the challenge, a noticeably intelligent and characterful cast started to emerge, including experienced theatre actors Nichole Bird and Robert Gill, and West End tapper Joshua Lay. David had been struck by the formidable presence of West End star CJ Johnson in 42nd Street (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) and invited her to audition for the adult female lead. Casting the mousie – Roma child Helene – was a daunting task. But after many live auditions, we received an audition tape that blew us away. Already appearing in a West End musical, dance champion Sasha Watson-Lobo possessed a dynamite mixture of intelligence, charm and sensitivity… All at the age of only seven! Both CJ and Sasha are newcomers to the screen. Edgy and unfussy, talented Jack Bennett was brought in as the awkward “adolescent” Nazi, Otto. After we had found Somi de Souza to play Helene's desperate mother, we received a late gift in the form of the celebrated Nigel Cooke, who suddenly became available to guest star as the night-club’s decaying, semi-Nazified, lederhosen-sporting drunk comedian, Kauz.

While the script was tweaked with the aid of script editor Catherine Williams and Roma historian Bob Dawson, old friends and colleagues Paul Kirsop (director of photography), Matt Lawson (first assistant director) and Laura Schalker (make-up designer) were joined by the generous and talented Kelly-Anne Robson and Mark Paine to run the art department; and TV legend Mary-Jane Reyner as costume designer, aided by a coterie of brilliant young assistants and trainees. In between days on Henson's The Dark Crystal for Netflix, puppeteer Tim Cherry-Jones took on the task of making the toy that would be Helene's little friend throughout - the mousie! And an old friend of David's - the delightful and talented Nigel Clarkson - agreed to operate Steadicam for the finale scene. With very little prep time (and next-to-no budget on a self-funded short), we all set to work.

With none being paid, we all believed in the message of the film, and donated our time in honour of the charity that will receive ANY profits from Mousie: The Separated Child Foundation. Since the era of Mousie, the world is generally in consensus about protecting children – yet still, thousands are abandoned, hurt, and ignored the world over. One British radio host even dismissed refugee children as "vermin". But who can forget the image of poor little three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi, lying drowned on a beach in Greece in 2015? Separated Child aims to relieve the trauma for those young refugees who arrive alone in Britain. You can read about their work here.

Aside from the fundamental plot themes, David had stipulated music and dance as a priority within Mousie, identifying the last gasp of Weimar-era performance culture as hugely symbolic of the war already raging within Germany before the blood started spilling elsewhere. Everything is under pressure at this time in Berlin, nothing more so than the very survival of art and its practitioners. CJ, Joshua and Sasha had to master four musical tap numbers between them in three weeks, under the instruction of West End choreographer Stuart Winter, hot from An American In Paris at the Dominion Theatre.

Production kicked into action during the hot summer of 2018, beginning at Hoxton, where the hall's staff proved to be exceptionally accommodating and enthusiastic. All interiors were photographed here before we moved to Chatham for the finale, turning an eighteenth century shipping wharf into a corner of 1930s Berlin. Fortunately the weather held, and our night shoot went smoothly - Sasha performing without a word of complaint, as always.

While there, we also managed to shoot the touching moment of Helene’s mother (Mama Zehala, played by Somi de Souza) leaving her child with the Aryan club-dancer, Katharina…

Post-production was led by film editor Duncan Moir who donated time between other projects to pull Mousie together.

The production was also lucky enough to pull in composer Jack Arnold (left) for moments when his schedule as composer and music producer on Tom Harper’s Wild Rose allowed. Since first working with Jack in 2011, David had been a big fan. His lyrical, haunting score for Mousie seems to remind us of Helene’s Romani roots as much as it reflects the increasing peril a seven-year-old finds herself in. Leading with the violin, Jack uses the traditional Roma instrument the cimbalom and the plangent tones of the Middle Eastern qanun to remind us of the child’s cultural displacement: a fate shared by almost all refugees. In this film, music is another language, an architectural structure as relevant as dialogue. And Jack’s music sits within a soundscape otherwise containing tunes of the Weimar Era (provided by the band of Barnabas von Geczy and others); Haydn’s now-Nazified anthem; and the piano music of pre-war operetta composer Leon Jessel, who was tortured to death by the Gestapo in 1942. While Jack provides the experience of the little girl, the other music provides the world in which she is struggling to survive.

As recording and mixing progressed, so Mousie was ready for grading (in the hands of colourist Paul Fallon and cinematographer Paul Kirsop); online editing from Andy Mitchell; and the final sound dub in the hands of mixer Tom O’Pray. Sasha provided some ADR, and we were lucky enough to have the kind contribution of actor Thomas Arnold's voice to fill out the club too. These final processes were hosted by London editing facility Envy Post Production – yet another generous sponsor of Mousie, its artistic intention, its message and the Separated Child Foundation it ultimately seeks to support.