- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday May 10 2005 11.47 BST
Cheap and cheerful... a still from The Man Who Met Himself
A former rail worker with no formal film training is heading to the Cannes festival after his £400 short was selected for competition.
Ben Crowe, a 27-year-old ex-GNER employee, teamed up with family and friends to make The Man Who Met Himself, about a private eye investigating a suicide. It is one of nine films selected out of more than 3,000 entries for the short-film Palme d'Or and the only British feature in the category.
Crowe wrote, directed, produced and shot the film, before editing it on his Apple Mac computer at home. His brother Daniel plays the hero, while his girlfriend, Preti Taneja, cowrote and coproduced the 10-minute short. They filmed at weekends in London's Covent Garden.
Crowe learnt the news last Friday, just as he heard that his employment contract as an election strategy analyst with the Department for Constitutional Affairs was not going to be renewed. "When I got the call I was at work and thought it was my producer James playing a trick on me," Crowe told the Press Association. "This is amazing recognition for any film-maker, but for a small independent team, it is a dream come true."
The team's main worry is now how to get the money to go to the prestigious film festival, which opens tomorrow.
Taneja, a 28-year-old charity worker from London, said: "This is just a fairytale for us. None of us have ever been to film school and the film was made for £400 of our own money. We just decided to make it when Ben sold his mandolin to raise money to buy his camera."
