Born in Fire: BAFTA director’s Cornwall film has a crew of two

Two people, one camera, and a full feature film. That is the entire production behind Born in Fire, currently shooting in Cornwall with a cast and crew that never grows beyond two.

David Skynner, the BAFTA-winning television director behind ITV’s The Giblet Boys, and actress Suzy Hunt are shooting, performing and producing the whole thing themselves. No additional crew. No trucks. No catering tent.

What the film is about

Born in Fire follows Emma, a 48-year-old woman gripped by agoraphobia and grief. She is hiding from the world in an out-of-season Cornish holiday park, pursued by debt collectors and by the ghost of the man she loved.

David directs and plays the deceased Sam. Suzy Hunt plays Emma. The film has drawn comparison to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and to Mark Jenkin’s BAFTA-winning Enys Men, though its production strips things back even further than either.

How two people make a feature

David operates his own professional cinema camera and sound equipment, drawing on three decades as a television director and more recent work as a screen acting tutor at university level. He is editing the film as well.

“People hear ‘feature film’ and picture forty trucks and a catering tent,” said David. “We are proving that the only things a film actually requires are a story worth telling, the skill to tell it, and the will to do it without permission. Gareth Edwards made Monsters with a van and two actors and it launched his career to Hollywood. Mark Jenkin won a BAFTA processing his own film in his kitchen here in Cornwall. We are working in that tradition.”

The pair are documenting the whole thing on a podcast, 2 Make a Movie, which follows the practical and creative reality of making a feature with a crew of two.

Why independence, after £10 million deals

David has brought feature films close to production through conventional financing before, and watched them fall apart. One comedy was fully financed at £10 million before the bank reneged on its contract. Another had a conditional $15 million commitment from a major US studio, contingent on an A-list lead who signed on and then departed weeks later for a different role. A third, a comedy with UK household names attached, was financed at £2.3 million before it collapsed when the production’s sales agent declined to secure a small pre-sale that financiers had asked for.

Born in Fire is a deliberate move in the other direction. Total creative and financial independence, built around a story that needs nothing but two actors, a camera, and conviction.

The Kickstarter

On 11 July 2026 the pair launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund post-production, festival submissions and distribution. The goal is a modest £10,000, a figure that reflects how little the production actually needs to run. The Kickstarter pre-launch page is live now as a summary of the project ahead of launch day.

For now, principal photography continues in Cornwall, with a crew that still numbers exactly two.