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Juliet Remembered, a short film written and directed by Tamzin Merchant, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds needed to complete the project. The film is about an actress with Alzheimer’s disease who cannot recognise her son, but remembers every line of her favourite role: Shakespeare’s Juliet.

Maggie Steed will be playing Juliet while Matthew Lewis will play a nurse, Toby. More details about the cast, crew and themes of the film can be read over at the Juliet Remembered Kickstarter page. (Thanks to marcel for the tip!)

JULIET REMEMBERED is about an actress with Alzheimer’s disease who has been transferred to a carehome after the death of her husband. Although she cannot remember day-to-day things, or even recognize her son when he visits, she can remember every word of her most famous role: Shakespeare’s Juliet.

What if you could only communicate through Shakespeare’s words? Is Juliet constricted by this or do his words transcend experience to strangely beautify her disease?

Tamzin hopes to raise £6500 ($9500) to help finish the short and promote it through film festivals and other means.  The money you donate will help in this goal:

Filmmaking is an expensive process, particularly post-production. We already have some of the funding in place to start us off, but absolutely need your help to take us through the shoot, post production, marketing and festivals. For production, we need your support for camera rental, sound recording, transport and catering. With low-budget filmmaking, it’s crucial to prioritise funds for post including video editing, colour grading, sound design, Additional Dialogue Recording and music composition. Finally, we want JULIET REMEMBERED to be screened at as many festivals as possible and win lots of awards. Marketing, promotional materials and submission fees are costly. In short, we need you to get involved with bringing this poetic story to life.

Tamzin and producer Jessica Benhamou have some lofty aspirations for the film:

We want JULIET REMEMBERED to knock the socks off our respective first short films by qualifying for major Oscar and Bafta-accredited festivals around the world, such as Cannes, Raindance, Tribeca, Sundance and London Film Festival. Our first short films have already screened at eight festivals combined and Tamzin’s has won two awards. We are confident that JULIET REMEMBERED will raise the bar. Ultimately, we want our short film to pave the way for us to make feature films. Tamzin and Jessica both have feature scripts and TV pilots in development.

As two young, female filmmakers we know how important it is to tackle gender inequality on and off the camera through representation. Only one in ten Directors in the UK are women and we wish to tell stories about underrepresented groups.

Our story also combines entertainment with a strong social imperative. We hope to boost public awareness about Alzheimer’s disease. There are 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, according to the Alzheimer’s Society, with numbers set to rise to over 1 million by 2025.

Finally, we want to engage young people with their heritage and encourage an appreciation for Shakespeare. 2016 marks 400 years since his death and we want to celebrate Shakespeare’s life with an original interpretation of his most iconic heroine.

Donate to help Juliet Remembered via Kickstarter and be sure to like the film on Facebook and follow @Remember_Juliet on Twitter!

Tamzin, Matthew and fellow cast member Rakhee Thakrar also spoke to BBC One about the film. That interview may be watched below: