24/05/2002 - Francesca Joseph, the director of Tomorrow la Scala, had a promising beginning: the public welcomed her film with great enthusiasm

Francesca Joseph already had another promising beginning - with Certain Regard. Her comedy, Tomorrow la Scala, was greeted with lengthy, thunderous applause. Joseph has directed several documentaries for the BBC - (The Matchmaker and Driving School). She won the Royal Television Society Newcomers Award for Four Tarts and a Tenor. Tomorrow la Scala is her first feature length film. It´s the happy outcome of what can happen when truth and fiction meet. The main characters are a group of actors who are putting on Stephen Sondheim´s Sweeney Todd. They decide to rope in a group of convicts from a maximum security prison - who are all doing time for murder. Sweeney Todd, the main character in Sondheim´s musical, was a barber who became a serial killer. The actors and convicts meet every day for rehearsals, which soon become a showcase for the everyday joys and sorrows of a group of human beings who don´t feel particularly human any more. The end result is an exhilarating but bittersweet comedy which also takes a hard look at prison life and the therapeutic effect that music and acting can have on the human psyche. The film was produced by Ruth Caleb and Christopher Collins for Home Movie Production. The film was filmed on video, with a budget of just under € 700,000.