The coming of age-comedy “Tears of the Son” tells the story of  two teenagers confronted with a friend’s imminent death. Instead of drifting off into sentimentality, the film delivers a sensitive study of grief and acceptance – and still manages to make its audience laugh. Director Dean Threadgold talks about the pleasure of working with kids and action stars.

In a few words, what is your film about?

It’s basically about how people deal with grief. The theory of the five stages of grief tells us that we go through different emotional states when we experience a great loss. Each of the two main characters represents a discrete  stage. Josh stands for denial and bargaining, as he beliefs he can cure cancer with the tears of a super hero, whereas Simon has already accepted the situation. Even though their friend Dan cannot be healed I think that the film comes to a happy ending when Josh eventually has gone through the whole process of accepting his friend’s death.

You worked with kids on that movie. How was that?

It was great, I would like to do that again. They’ve got very natural characters and when they’re good at acting it’s really fun to work with them. It’s also much more relaxed at the set if there are kids around because everybody likes joking with them.

Adrian Bouchet, who had a role in “Alien vs. Predator“, played the part of the action star Buck Harris. What is the difference in working with professional actors and amateurs?

For me the difference was that I always feared Adrian might find the whole set too unprofessional and leave right away. We also couldn’t pay him. But in the end I think he enjoyed working with us.

Which one do you consider your most important film?

I actually would say it is “Tears of the Son” because it’s been the one at the biggest scale so far. We were a group of 25 people with five people as the core. I had the possibility to pick the crew I wanted, and even though the script was written by a friend it feels like “my film”. There is another one, a documentary about my grandmother that I did in my first year, which is very important for me,  too.

As a director, do you hold strict expectations about how every scene should look?

I think I always start with a very strict idea, but it changes once we start shooting the film. The main characters stay the same, but it’s good to allow space for flexibility. The process of film-making is still going on while shooting, and some scenes just don’t work well the way you figured it beforehand. But there should always be one person pushing the group, and that’s usually the director.

After “Tears of the Son”, what is your next project?

Together with a friend I want to create a web-series. It will be about a guy who is out of work and has to scratch a living with ridiculous jobs. He somehow always gets drawn into surreal stories. It is about the stage in our life where we have to find a place in the world, and also deals with the problem of our generation that we have good degrees but are not needed.

Sounds good, please keep us informed. Thank you for the interview.

Dean Threadgold recently graduated from the Westminster Film School in London. “Tears of the Son” will be shown on November 18th at 17:00 pm and on November 19th at 22:00 pm.