An aspiring film-maker is cutting her hair short to raise the money needed to tell the story of a young boy stricken with cancer.

Nicole Westpfel has been crowdfunding for her latest project, Vanilla Sunday, which examines the friendship between two children which is tragically cut short when one succumbs to leukaemia.

With the total raised falling short of the film’s budget, the former Leigh Academy pupil, who is from Dartford, is hoping a sponsored haircut pushes her closer to the £5,000 target.

As the film narrative touches on the topic of death in children, she will be cutting 12 inches off her hair and donating it to a children’s charity.

Nicole said: “The hair will be given to a charity that makes it into wigs for children with hair-loss illnesses, including leukaemia, called the Little Princess Trust.”

Vanilla Sunday is set in 1994 and focuses on two eight-year-old boys, Ronan and Michael, who have a budding friendship until Michael disappears with his mother.

Ronan begins to receive letters from his pal but they suddenly stop, prompting him to find his new home.

Described as a film of bravery, independence, and courage, Nicole is hoping it proves a fitting send-off to her time at Ravensbourne university in Greenwich, where she is a third-year student.

She wrote the script with her friend Maisy Osbon, who is also from Dartford and graduated from Reading University last year with a degree film and English literature.

Nicole said: “We started writing it in July 2016, developed the characters, and started to make changes to make it more interesting for the screen.

“In January we started putting it into production and put a crew together. Now we’ve found the locations and we’ve done the casting through an agency for child actors.”

Nicole has assembled a team of 30, including some from outside university, like her music teacher composer.

The director hopes the film will provide a launchpad for a professional career, having stumbled into studying film almost by chance.

She said: “As a child I enjoyed making things with my hands and I actually went into sixth form thinking I wanted to go into dress-making.

“I had to pick four options for what I wanted to study. One was media studies because I’d heard everyone passed it.

“I ended up being really good at it and my teacher was really inspirational.”

She ended up pursuing film at university, where she has already cut her teeth by directing projects including a short thriller and a music video.

You can find out more about the film at facebook.com/
VanillaSundayFilm