Kibwe Tavares unveils short film Robot & Scarecrow produced by Michael Fassbender’s DMC Film

London-based director Kibwe Tavares has unveiled a trailer for his upcoming short film Robot & Scarecrow, made for Michael Fassbender and Conor McCaughan’s production company DMC Film with co-producers Nexus, and social media network Vero. It has been funded through a partnership initiative founded by the companies to support emerging directors.

With Kibwe as director and Daniel Emmerson as producer with DMC, Robot & Scarecrow was filmed at UK festival Secret Garden Party, and features CGI by Factory Fifteen (which Kibwe co-founded). “Kibwe’s got a totally unique approach,” says Daniel, “and had an ambitious vision from the outset that involved animating pretty much every frame of the film. We got loads from the location and after that, it was a three-year process with a small team of super skilled animators and visual effects artists, who translated the live action performances.”

Kibwe explains: “I feel the story is a weird, but straightforward, love story! The classic tale of two characters unable to be together as one is free and the other completely controlled. It’s also more than that, and is a nod to our youth culture, specifically at festivals. I wanted to create something that celebrated our love of festivals.”

Robot & Scarecrow stars Jack O’Connell and Holliday Grainger, as Scarecrow and Robot respectively, and will be released on 31 May exclusively on Vero, as the first to come out of the companies’ partnership. Next will be Love Pool directed by Asim Chaudhry and John Moves In by Ben Aston. The app will also act as a platform for other related content connected to the film, where users can explore the music, actors and concepts in more detail.

Michael Fassbender says of the initiative: “[We] wanted to use the short film fund to build on our model of nurturing and developing relationships with emerging filmmakers.”

You can watch the full film from 31 May here. Look out for our upcoming feature interview with Kibwe and his musician brother Gaika.