Alex Garcia's Residue begins shoot

Principal photography has begun today on paranormal thriller Residue, which will be be shot on location across Leeds and at Green Screen Studios.

The announcement was made by Content Media Corporation and Matador Pictures, which will produce the film in association with Gloucester Place Films, Green Screen Productions and Screen Yorkshire. Lead producer is Matador Pictures’ Charlotte Walls.

Residue is a paranormal thriller following the lives of eight characters caught up in the aftermath of a freak explosion at the heart of a sprawling, futuristic city. 

It marks the feature debut of director Alex Garcia, best known for directing episodes of urban superhero series Misfits and conspiracy thriller Utopia.

Creator and writer John Harrison (Tales from the Dark Side) will also executive produce with Matador’s Nigel Thomas.

The ensemble cast includes Natalia Tena, best known for her role as Tonks in four of the Harry Potter series and she iscurrently starring in HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. She is joined by Iwan Rheon, another Game of Thrones star, who came to prominence in Channel 4 series Misfits and also featured in Dexter Fletcher’s Wild Bill.

Other cast members include Jamie Draven (The Mill, Badland), Danny Webb (Alien 3, Sherlock Holmes), Brian Ferguson (Taggart), Eleanor Matsuura (Utopia), Franz Drameh (Attack the Block) and Adrian Schiller (Brighton Rock), all of whom were cast by Julie Harkin (The Fades, Utopia).

Matador Pictures’ Charlotte Walls said: “Alex Garcia and John Harrison have created a story-world that is utterly compelling and has attracted a really high calibre of exciting British talent on both sides of the camera.”

According to the production synopsis, Residue centres on “renowned photojournalist Jennifer Preston, investigating the aftermath of a freak explosion of unknown origin at the center of her hedonistic city.

“Known simply as ‘the Catastrophe’, this shocking tragedy has left behind a festering wound on the city’s psyche: a several square mile Quarantine Zone (known as the QZ) of evacuated buildings and abandoned streets. Nobody in nobody out.

“With unexplained and increasingly bizarre acts of violence happening across the city, Jennifer begins to see strange ephemeral phantoms in her photographs. She soon becomes obsessed with the idea that a paranormal phenomenon has been unleashed. Jennifer’s investigations become a race against time to uncover the truth before her career, and eventually her own life, are in danger…”