TOBY MACDONALD
Toby Macdonald started working on film sets as a runner at the age of 16. His short film JE T’AIME JOHN WAYNE about a young Englishman obsessed with the French New Wave was nominated for a BAFTA, selected for Directors Fortnight in Cannes, won the TCM Prize for Best Short at the London Film Festival and won the European Film Academy Award for Best Short. His follow up, the critically acclaimed short HEAVY METAL DRUMMER, was also nominated for a BAFTA and was selected for film festivals all over the world. Shot in Morocco in arabic, it told the story of a drummer teenage who is the only heavy metal fan in his town . Toby has directed award winning commercials working with Partizan London and the series MY LIFE IN FILM for BBC2.

Director's statement
To a romantically hopeless, day dreaming adolescent, the Cyrano story felt like it spoke right to every excruciating part of being a teenager. […] We wondered what would have happened if Cyrano had the courage to tell Roxanne the truth - how would he have summoned up the courage? What would have been the worst thing that could have happened? It seemed like a wonderful moment in a coming of age story - with the help of a friend, a teenage liar comes clean and his life story really begins. The other element to the Cyrano story that struck a chord was emotional repression, the idea of burying your true self, hiding it away - a particularly English trait that everybody can identify with. Where would an imaginative boy, different, a real outsider, need to bury himself? The single sex boarding school is a quintessentially English institution. Arcane places where boys are handed over by their parents to learn how to be men, to conform, a chap factory that turns out the right kind of fellow. These are the boys who run the country. They are told they are great, that they are going to be great and they believe it. Strictly hierarchical, deeply unimaginative, brimming with unfounded over confidence, feelings buried and, crucially, absolutely no women. The absence of girls is a disaster for these boys. Sports become everything. The school is their family. They are clueless and yet they think they know it all. How do they react when a real girl arrives? What happens when their bravado runs out? Who would they turn to for help? […] Amberson is desperately trying to invent himself the way the school wants him to be, to fit in - he optimistically tries to overcome his class but they will never let him. He’s never been skiing. Agnes is tough, vulnerable, funny. She has a depth and maturity that is way beyond these boys. And yet she is a teenager too, when she lets herself be. Together, Agnes and Amberson are the heart of the film. A teenage boy and girl trying to work out who they are and where they are going. “Your life begins when you are born, but your life story begins at that moment when you discover that you are in the wrong family” - Phillip Pullman.