An avid Quentin Tarantino fan, Taras Demian Groves is hoping to follow in the footsteps of the highly acclaimed film director and having received plenty of praise for his film work so far, it looks as though he is on the right track.

The 26-year-old from Harrow has recently won awards for his first feature length film, The Profesional - misspelt on purpose - which include best horror/suspense feature film at the I Filmmaker International Film Festival in Marbella and best screenplay at the Los Angeles Urban Film Festival.

Taras, who worked at Homebase while making the film, explains: “It is a zero budget film about a hitman, who only takes one hit to kill people. As we didn’t have funding for the film, you can’t have things like explosions and special effects, so the film is an exploration of an introverted character and focuses on why it is he only ever kills in just one hit.

“I have always been interested in human capabilities,” adds the former Brunel University psychology student, “this is probably the one thing that links all my films together - the extremity of the good and the bad. I like watching crime documentaries, particularly on the crimes surrounding psychopaths, what they are capable of and the question of whether or not they can feel. I guess that is the biggest theme of this film.”

Harrow Times:

Taras, who chose not to go out too often while at university so he could save money and buy his camera equipment, started shooting The Profesional in 2013 and completed it at the beginning of 2015.

During the latter part of last year he showcased the film at various film festivals across the country and gained considerable insight along the way.

“I think my biggest mistake with The Profesional was I made it too long,” says Taras. “Although we got into quite a few festivals I think we could have done more - when you are a nobody, nobody wants to give you a two-hour slot and 80/90 minute films tend to have a lot more success.

“I probably wouldn’t have misspelled ‘professional’ - I did it because it relates to the theme of mistakes and ties in with the fact that the hitman is a fraudulent character.

“It’s also a homage to the film Leon, which in some countries is called The Professional.

“And I think people remembered it more because of it - it was something to talk about and explain. Tarantino also does it, but when you’re world famous it is easier to do that,” adds Taras, who has a Ukranian heritage.

He goes on to say that Tarantino is one of his biggest inspirations and Pulp Fiction is his all-time favourite film.

“Tarantino makes films an experience. There are a lot of films you watch and two minutes after you have left the cinema you forget about it, a week after you can’t even remember the characters. Whereas with Tarantino, whether or not you like him, he always leaves an impression - he is a master of the characters he creates, the situations they are in and it’s all just so exciting,” says Taras.

“Pulp Fiction is a timeless film. Making something that lasts is rare. Pulp Fiction, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now are all timeless films, where if you watch them in 50 years time, they will still be just as powerful and moving.”

Taras says now he wants to create a short film, which he hopes to take to various festivals including Cannes in a bid to try and get his name out there. In May this year, he also plans to move to Canada for two years and begin work on another feature film.

“I have family over there and that’s is where I went to write the script for The Profesional and finish editing it. It’s like my writers haven. I want to have a script written by the end of the year and hopefully create the film by 2018 - I want to set it in Canada, in British Colombia as it is so beautiful and hopefully crack the American markets and festivals.”