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Charles Teton's Dark Summer is the tale of two innocents in search of happiness.

When it comes to low budget film-making Charles Teton can probably claim to be the UK's answer to Robert Rodriguez. Although, not quite as cash-strapped as El Mariachi which at $7,000 (£4,860) his now entered film folklore. Teton's feature debut, Dark Summer cost a mere £8,000 to shoot Add a few more grand on post-production and the total cash cost was just over £40,000, excluding defereements. And like the precocious Rodriguez, Teton didn't find financial constraints meant artistic compromises. "It gave us a lot more freedom." says the 31-year old director. "We had a very small crew and were able to go out at dawn and dusk to shoot, which with a large production would have hiked up the cost." Dark Summer is set over one summer in Liverpool and is the tale of two innocents. Abe (Steve Ako), a black guy from the wrong side of the track, meets Jess (Joeline Garner-Joel) the daughter, of his well-to-do employer. They fall in love, she gets pregnant and, despite the protests of her father, they set up a home. They asked for the moon and, for a brief moment, got it. But happiness is elusive and when Jess miscarries things fall apart. "It is a pretty pessimistic, bleak film," says Teton. "Abe and Jess come out the other end of their relationship totally wiped out. I suppose it's really about lost innocence. The two characters became more innocent while we were making the film, because that's where the two actors both complete newcomers took them. The film ended up being a sort of mix between some of my own personal experiences and some of the actors." He describes the film's style as pretty Iaid-back" but was given the ultimate compliment by Roger Shannon, ex-director of the Birmingham, Film Festival, who now heads up the Moving Image Development Agency in Liverpool. "Roger said it looked like a French movie that really made me happy," says Teton.

With its minuscule budget cobbled together, from North West Arts, Liverpool City Council, various sponsorship and Teton's own savings, the film was shot on and off over a year, with the cast and tiny crew (Teton himself is billed as producer, cinematographer and editor as well as writer director) snatching moments before and after work to rehearse, set-up, shoot and move on. Unusually, Teton opted to shoot on Cinemascope, giving, the film the sort of broad sweep usually associated with epics by David Lean and not a no-budget feature set in Liverpool. "Liverpool is a beautiful city with some wonderful landmarks," says the director. "If I believed every thing, I'd heard about the city before I came here, I would have expected a crime-ridden, depressed, grimy, disgusting city. But I've encountered nothing but people with a really ,good attitude. We've had help all the way down the line here, even from the people in the street. I don't think even Letter To Brezhnev or Blonde Fist did it justice. I tried to make the city a third character in the film, using its different buildings to reflect the up's and downs of the central relationship." Teton grew up amid the leafy suburbs of Surrey, but found the place too cosy & smug, for his taste. After leaving school at 17 he escaped to Paris, where he worked as photographer's assistant to some leading fashion snappers, including Sarah Moon. But when fashion photography lost its appeal "I found it very limiting. It was all surface gloss and they didn't like you introducing realism into an image," he says. He upped and offed to Italy, spending three years "having a great time", again within the photographic world. After another peripatetic period, which included a stint as a sous-chef in Florida, he moved to Liverpool in the late 1980's, and has been there ever since. But his feet are itching, again, and his next film, an adaptation of Georges Bataille's exploration of sexual obsession, The Story Of The Eye may take him back to France. Teton sees little cause for optimism within today's unsympathetic political climate. In his opinion, the film industry owes its precarious survival to the service companies providing thousands of pounds worth of equipment on very generous terms. "We couldn't have done it without the support of all the companies that provided us with equipment," says Teton. "Those are the ones who believe in the British film industry."

Patricia Dobson