'Stone Hearts & Careless People' is a supernatural romance that explores love, loneliness and the beautiful tragedy of living. We follow River, a lonely, socially rejected art student. She goes to a ruined mausoleum to draw statues but gets stranded as the last tour bus leaves. As she sits in the ruins alone she is confronted by a statue that comes to life at night and their relationship develops.

Watch the trailer Below:

The film was shot entirely on location at Ulster Screen Academy's LED Volume. It is written and directed by Josh McAvoy, produced by Sinéad Burns and stars Aoife MacNamara, Adam Murphy and Tosin Oyediran. With Director of Photography, George Barnes and Virtual Production Supervisor, Eva Robinson.

Stone Hearts was produced as part of the 'VP Futures Program' Funded and run by Storyfutures Academy and Future Screens NI, Supported by Industrial Light & Magic and Epic Games.

VP Futures was a UK-wide accelerator program comprised of 8 boutique companies from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The teams recieved 5 months of intensive Virtual Production mentorship from Industrial Light and Magic and Epic Games.

Aura was one of the two award-winning companies chosen to go forward and produce a funded short film to demonstrate the verticals and skills developed.

Filming on-volume in Belfast for one of the first virtual production short films in the country involved upskilling local talent and building new and robust production pipelines. As a result, Aura is now competently engaging with virtual production on a commercial level.

See the Behind-the-scenes video here.

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