Lonely heart Noreen spends her waking hours working for her grim, surly parents on the family farm in the North of England. Overweight and overworked, she finally finds the love and appreciation she craves close to home, in a chalk pit. She’s finally caught someone’s attention – and it’s not the grizzled cowboy of her daydreams, or even a wellybooted farm hand, but a derelict and flirtatious talking tractor who wins her heart with his rusty charm. Noreen saddles up and sets about restoring her unlikely suitor, and in time falls in love with the machine. But how will her overbearing father react when he learns that his daughter’s involvement with the tractor is not purely professional? Oliver Krimpas’ GHOST IN THE MACHINE is a chaste, humorous love story reminiscent of Stephen King’s more light-hearted tales of the unexpected. We spoke to Oliver about his work.

…if you have a story you believe in, you just have to find the money to make it. And if the story’s good enough, you probably will.

Rosy Hunt: There is a gap in your film making career – from a short made in 2003 to GHOST which was made last year. Can I ask what your creative outlet is when you’re not telling stories on film?

Oliver Krimpas: Not an intentional gap! There were a number of films that never happened because funding fell through. I take a lot of photos (on film!) and do my own printing, and I also do a fair bit of writing. But by the time GHOST IN THE MACHINE came along, I was ready to burst because it had been so long since my last film.

RH: That is such a shame! What experiences can you share with readers who might be new film makers struggling to find funding?

OK: I can’t think of any particularly colourful anecdotes about the struggle for funding: you either secure it or you don’t. I think the thing is that if you have a story you believe in, you just have to find the money to make it. And if the story’s good enough, you probably will.

RH: What new projects are you working on at the moment? I know you are working on a new website.

OK: I’ve got another short I’d like to do but I’m keen to get a first feature off the ground, so I’m kicking around a few ideas of my own, and working with writers on developing a few ideas. I do have a website that I hope to get live in the next couple of weeks (krimpas.com), but building and snagging a site is one of life’s duller tasks, so it’s taken a while.

RH: What themes attract you in a story – what kind of writer do you like to work with?

OK: There isn’t something in particular I can say I’m looking for before I come across a story, but I tend to be attracted to the kinds of things that connect with me on an emotional level somehow. It might be quite lateral, where a certain character’s journey might triggers empathy in me because of something – on the surface of things – quite unconnected to the story. I like to work with writers who are talented and who I get on with. It might seem obvious, but it’s quite hard to tick both those boxes.

[Jessica Gunning] really connected to the core of the character’s emotional scar tissue…

RH: Finally, it’s really refreshing to see a film with a charismatic, overweight female lead who isn’t a figure of fun. Can you tell me a little about the casting process?

OK: We’d seen Jessica Gunning on stage at the National Theatre in “Major Barbara” and called her in for an audition, along with another 15 women my casting director put forward. The part required an overweight woman for the story to work. Jessica was the standout, because even though she is an extremely confident individual in person, she really connected to the core of the character’s emotional scar tissue. She is outstandingly talented, and able to convey an awful lot while seemingly doing very little.

TAKE ONE will be catching up with Oliver Krimpas again in future. Meanwhile, read Kim Boyd’s review of GHOST IN THE MACHINE here.