-Who is Nathan Geering?

I am a multi-award winning director and action designer. I love combining metaphor with striking visuals to give deeper meaning to the films I make. I have a real passion for doing fight choreography and cover everything from bar room brawls to highly stylised martial arts sequences. Recently I have been selected to train with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team in Beijing which I’m really looking forward to. My unique Break-Fu style can be seen on full display in my new film Flaming Assassin. I am particularly proud of this film as it combines fire, breakin and martial arts to create visuals that audiences will have never seen before. With this film I really strived to make sure that the quality of the dialogue matches the quality of the action, so when it won awards for Best Action, Best Martial Arts and Best Thriller at various film festivals I was over the moon. Another thing I specialise in is accessibility innovation for people with disabilities. In 2017 I was the Artistic Director for the Special Olympics Opening Ceremony. I also created a unique form of audio description known as the Rationale Method which combines poetry, beatboxing/vocal percussion and sound effects to provide heightened access for both visually impaired and sighted audiences. So when I started making my own films it was important that I incorporated accessibility into elements of my film making. For example I was frustrated with seeing non-disabled people playing disabled roles in films…..especially action films. Because I know what people with disabilities are capable of, I started to create fight choreography with people with disabilities. The reason for this was to give the industry lived examples of people with disabilities doing action to counteract casting directors and others in the industry saying “disabled people can’t do action”. I wanted to prove that not only can people with disabilities do action, but they can do it well! So to sum it up Nathan Geering is a director, fight choreographer and an accessibility innovator.

-What inspired you to become a Filmmaker?

As a kid I grew up in the 80s watching old skool kung fu movies. I was obsessed with them. I really loved the artistry of the movement, the slapstick comedy and the philosophical teachings that could be found within them. I never thought that I could become a film maker but it was this early experience which laid the foundation to what would eventually become my career. Fast forward to 2020 and everything that was happening with the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement I decided to hold an artistic peaceful protest in my home city of Sheffield. For that event I made a live performance that used a flaming rope dart as a metaphor for struggle. After the protest I still had so much energy inside me that I decided to make my first short film to further express what myself and many people of colour were feeling…….little did I know that it would go on to have impact that it did.

-Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?

Most definitely. I experienced some of that with my debut film “Still A Slave”. Not only was it a social commentary on what was happening at the time but I also used audio description in a unique way. I made the decision not to only have audio description as a form of accessibility but I utilised it as a storytelling vehicle for the film. This helped to bridge the gap between sighted and visually impaired audiences and meant that everyone experienced the audio description rather than it just being available to visually impaired audiences. Doing this was a risk but it paid off in many ways. Not only did the film win many awards including Best Audio Description and Achievement in Accessibility, it also went on to be used in many university and educational settings to help educate people on issues surrounding equality, diversity and inclusion. On a much broarder scale I feel cinema can definately bring about a change in society as it is a vehicle that can convey powerful messeges to the masses in unique ways. Making a film with a powerful messege by itself is not enough though. It needs to be supported by socially conscious distributors who are willing to help get your film out to the masses. This I believe is best way achieve powerful impact that will help change people’s hearts and minds to make a positive shift in society.

-What would you change in the world?

I think I would change how many people relate to themselves in this world. We are all greater than we could ever imagine. I feel if we acted from a place of self love rather than self preservation then we would relate to ourselves and the rest of the world differently. There wouldn’t be a need to step on other people or hurt eachother, because we would all realise, we are enough. We don’t need to bring other people down to pull ourselves up. Wars wouldn’t be necessary, greed would become obsolete and people’s mental and emotional wellbeing would be in a far better place.

-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?

I think in the next 100 years it will become more immersive giving people more experiences that blur the line between cinema and reality. I also see more film makers taking agency and finding more innovative ways to distribute their own work to the masses.
Lastly I feel social media will be integrated in more ways. For example today I saw in Australia a social media influencer had over 100 of their tiktok videos turned into a fine art exhibition and showcased on life sized screens at a prestigious museum. I think this is a sign of things to come with film. Whether or not the changes for cinema over the next 100 years will be positive or negative remains to be seen…….but one thing for sure is that, change is coming.