Stolen Miles follows an ex-bicycle thief Fraser who is trying to escape his old ways by working in a corner shop. One night he meets Ieva - a foreign girl who is running away in an attempt to rebel against her upper-class background and everything she was taught to be. She insists on him teaching her how to steal bikes, but what she doesn’t know is that he’s an adrenaline addict. Intrigued by Ieva, Fraser agrees to give her a few tips.

The couple embarks on a one-night adventure through different sides of Edinburgh. Fraser teaches Ieva all sorts of bike-stealing secrets, slowly choosing to ignore the reasons why he stopped and giving himself into the excitement of the night.

 In the process of learning a lot about each other and the world around them - the two get to know themselves for who they really are. For one night, all other problems in the world seem to disappear. 

Until the night takes an unexpected turn - Ieva learns that Fraser hasn't stolen any bikes ever since he was caught half a year ago, however, this time it’s different - he’s 18 and can get charged for real. She tries to do something but it's too late, Fraser got the hook again, the police are called - the couple tries to run... But Fraser is arrested. 

Will Ieva take action in response, or is there anything she can do at all? Would things have turned out differently if Fraser hadn’t met Ieva? Who is to blame for it all? Ieva? Himself? Addiction? Peers? Or the system, leaving some people no other choice and pushing them to steal in the first place?

We have a crew that is incredibly committed and ambitious, and we want to make this film to the highest possible standard. However, because this is a completely self-funded project, we need YOUR support for it to succeed.

The Scottish capital attracts more than 2.3 million visitors each year to see the streets that are said to have inspired the famous Harry Potter books. Even this year, Edinburgh was ranked as the top destination worldwide. But there is another side to the city you won't find in tourist guides.

Since the Industrial Revolution, Scottish workers have built large ships, bent steel for a living and travelled long distances to work in coalfields and mines. However, in the late 1970s, the conservative gov- ernment of the time began the process of privatizing most of the manu- facturing, thereby ceasing to support the nationalized workforce. Mar- garet Thatcher's policies drove all the heavy steel, shipbuilding and coal industries out of Scotland without showing any concern for the working class.

Thus began a gloomy atmosphere in Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s. Crime and troubles in social housing increased, and the unem- ployment rate rose rapidly. in 1983 there were about 3.6 million unem- ployed people in Scotland with no opportunities. These people had a lot of free time on their hands, and a large part of them got involved in drug and alcohol use and selling. It became their way of life

There are families that have progressed from drinking alcohol to using drugs over three generations. This narrative is universal and is particularly comparable to the working class in the majority of Western countries.
What are the alternatives if you're a working-class child brought up in this environment? They are scarce. Why can some young people have them and others not?

Stolen Miles doesn’t try to prove or disprove anyone - it attempts to make sense of a world where two young individuals from different social classes have different chances in life.

Stolen Miles aims to address the moral dilemma that many young people face: who am I and what am I pretending to be? Does rebellion help a young person to know themselves? Why does a young person have a lot to deny, to disapprove of what older generations did, only to then repeat the same "mistakes"? Do you have to start with yourself to change the world? Am I responsible only for myself or also for a close person? Is it moral to abandon someone in need? If the opportunity presented itself to sacrifice your comfortable life and actually take action, would you dare to do it?

Our film Stolen Miles follows characters from completely different backgrounds: a young man born and raised in North Edinburgh and a young woman from Lithuania studying in the city. We want to tell a story that feels authentic and true to the experience of both characters, our director Elze is able to imbue the character of Ieva with her lived experience and to do the same for the character of Fraser we have reached out to people in the community, gave them the script and asked questions to lend it the same level of honesty.

But we’re taking it a step further by involving people from the area of North Edinburgh in our film project to have a positive impact in the community through partnering with a local youth charities and people. We want to give the young people of North Edinburgh an exciting and inspiring experience that will hopefully offer an alternative career path that may not have been accessible before. The creative industries rely on unpaid work and favours, especially at the student film level, and this excludes a lot of people from pursuing and maintaining viable careers in the arts. However there is a huge shortage of crew in Scotland as the demand for production increases year after year.

With Stolen Miles we’re doing something we hope to take onto our future projects to address the issues of representation and lack of crew in the Scottish screen sector.

We won't be able to complete this project without your help. We have meticulously planned up a budget that will cover all of our production demands. We need your help because donations are the only source of funding for this movie! The pie chart below shows how the donated funds will be used:

Whatever the size, every donation will help in the realisation of "Stolen Miles." Don't worry if you are unable to contribute; you can still do a lot to support our cause by sharing our Crowdfunder, liking our Facebook page, and following our Instagram!

Elzbieta Vozbinaite was born in 2000, in Vilnius. In 2018 she graduated from Skalvija Film Academy two-year course led by Andrius Blaževičius and won the best graduation film award “Skalvijukas”. Has participated in various international filmmaking workshops, festivals. Currently a student in “Screen Academy Scotland” film programme, working on many different projects (films, video clips) as a Director and Assistant Director and writing scripts for her upcoming films. In her work Elzbieta explores the experience of youths today and their relationship with their surroundings. Based between the UK and Lithuania.

Director's website

The cooperation of two countries - Scotland and Lithuania - is extremely important in this project, in order to reveal two sides of this story and the city. As a result, a part of the crew is Lithuanian. 

In order to capture the initial impression of the city, its touristy side and Ieva's perspective as a foreigner, it’s important for me to work with cinematographer Nojus who has never been to Edinburgh before. As we get to know the city, guided by Fraser’s character - we will start to notice the “invisible” side of the city - the city's architecture and colours will change over the course of the film. The majority of action in the film takes place at night - we use the romance and faith hidden in the dark, but when the first morning light appears - all of the magic disappears and the true colours of the world - the grittiness of Fraser’s neighbourhood and the violence of the final theft - become apparent. We shoot "hand-held" in order to convey the impression of realism and intensity of the situation. 

The production design focuses on small elements to convey the idea of the dual city. These features include posters, signs, and loads and loads of bicycles, which imply freedom and forward motion, which ironically are never reached in this film. 

The sound, also done by a Lithuanian sound designer, pays just as much attention to create a well rounded feeling of Edinburgh city. The impressive city shots seen are interrupted from time to time by sirens, cars, and the cries of drunken people, as if representing another part of the city, as if promising that something more, something unsettling is hidden under all the decorations. 

I want it to be a film that, after watching, first of all, a feeling arises, not a story - an unpleasant feeling of guilt, discomfort. 

With Stolen Miles I want to provoke thought and conversation among the audience.

Augustė Perstinevičiūtė is a filmmaker, born in 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 2019 she graduated from Skalvija Film Academy. Currently in the fourth year of  dramaturgy bachelor studies in the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre(head teacher: Birutė Kapustinskaitė). She’s mostly working as a screenwriter with projects in and outside of the Academy, and as assistant director or script supervisor on set. As a young adult, she enjoys using filmmaking as a tool to explore herself and the world around her.

When Elze suggested working together, I didn’t think too much before accepting - I really wanted to try working with her. Then, slowly and gradually I fell inlove with the Stolen Miles story. And with Ieva’s and Fraser’s characters. I think that we put a lot of time and care in them. They feel very human to me - each with their own strenghts, dreams, flaws and illogical decisions. Both of them feel stuck somewhere they don’t want to see themselves in. It’s an universal feeling and during writing Stolen Miles, it felt important for me to emphasize that. Because it can open a dialogue with a viewer who feels the same. It is healing to feel seen.

It’s always a bit of a challenge to write with another person and I feel that Stolen Miles pushed me out of my comfort zone. Elze’s passion is very catchy and I believe in her and this project. Very excited to see the final result!

I'm Augustė,  the producer of the film Stolen Miles. At first, cinema impressed me with its ability to contain all possible branches of art. It wasn't until I got closer to filmmaking that I realized I was really drawn to producing. Since 2020, I have been studying film production at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, the experience gained over time working with local projects, and since last year with international ones, allowed me to join this film with confidence.

Elžbieta and I have known each other since the first days of our lives, so I trust her a lot and believe in her ideas, the joint work of the Lithuanian and Scottish film team is a real challenge, but the film dictates its own rules, in order to be able to talk about the collision of two different worlds, about the fact that beautiful postcards often remain just postcards.

Christian-Alexandru Popa, (born in 1995 in Romania) is a multidisciplinary artist/filmmaker based in Glasgow working with documentary, animation, performance and drama.

Being passionate about filmmaking all his life, Alex was determined to pursue his ambition and moved to the United Kingdom, where he graduated with his BA in Film Studies at the University of Essex in 2019, then moved to Glasgow to graduate with his Masters of Design in Sound for the Moving Image at The Glasgow School of Art in 2021. 

As a professional, Alex has honed his interpersonal communication, and practical skills through perseverance, working collaboratively and devotedly in teams with a diverse group of people, and studying new aspects of filmmaking to advance his practice. He is passionate about experimentation, and innovation along with establishing himself as a Producer in the film industry. In addition, he is engaged in collaborative projects with filmmakers and artists from Scotland to help produce and generate meaningful storytelling.

"This film has great potential to shape the upcoming independent filmmaking in Scotland. I am delighted to have this challenge and to be able to step up in my career by having to produce alongside such a talented and multinational group to create an impact in the young community of underrepresented groups in Scotland."

Nojus is a cinematographer, recently graduated from LMTA (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) with a bachelor degree. He is passionate about realism, documentary, and experimental genres,  and enjoys exploring possibilities of analog medium (when needed and possible).

Born in 1999 in Vilnius, Lithuania, he was raised by a family of artists. From 2016 he started shooting short documentaries. In 2017 he shot a master degree work for director Tadas Šlajus called “Adamah”. It was shot on 35mm anamorphic and was his first film on celluloid. Nojus got nominated for “best cinematography in student short film” for this movie in LAC (Lithuanian Association of Cinematographers awards “Ąžuolai 2018”)

In 2018 he started his studies of Cinematography in LMTA (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) with the guidance of head teacher Vilius Mačiulskis.

After graduating from LMTA he is working primarily as a DOP on short fiction, documentary films, music videos and commercials, and recently started to prepare for a feature length fiction movie. Sometimes he helps his colleagues working as a Gaffer in their shorts, and develops his own photography and video art projects.

I am really pleased that Elze chose to work with me. I feel that in this period I am interested mostly about the forms of realism in cinema: balance between stylization and documentalism in fiction films, so this movie is attractive for me for more than a few reasons. I feel that it will challenge me to be more adaptive and invent strategies for realistically capturing visual atmospheres of Edinburgh’s peripheries, and together with Elze explore ways of creating subjective experience. Also, it’s my first time shooting film abroad and with foregin crew too, so I feel that it will be a personal challenge in that way. I am really curious to experience Edinburh and the interesting part that also suits Elze’s idea is that i’ve never been to Scotland before. We will have limited time to scout, an that’s also a challenge - in a good way.

Oscar Mcintosh is a Scottish art director based in Leith, Edinburgh. After graduating from COGC Television course in 2018 he went on to work his way through the art department- gaining his experience and skills by working as an assistant on lower budget commercials & music videos. Oscar has now moved on to do standby & dressing on HETV drama series & film. His creative work within the industry (and outside of it) explores underground punk & nightlife culture with a heavy focus on the relationship between music & moving image.

Having grown up in Edinburgh and Glasgow I have experienced my fair share of bike crime. The first bike I ever bought for myself; a silver Haro BMX- was stolen from my back garden when I was 14. Later that week I had an awkward argument when I saw someone in the year above me at school cycling around with my handlebars on their bike. 

Bike crime is prevalent in large cities and is one of the most common forms of crime young people end up get involved in. I’m interested in this story as it gives me an opportunity to visualise the more real & gritty side to Edinburgh; a city usually perceived as rich and beautiful.

Marius Pakštas was born in Kaunas, Lithuania. After school he worked in theatre as a stage technician for a year. After that, he then started studying at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy and finished his bachelor’s degree specialising in Sound Design (sound directing). Now, he works as a freelance sound recordist, boom operator and sound editor.

Had an opportunity to work with Elze on another project in summer. She mentioned the movie she was going to make in her final year of study and the story, characters and the city itself really intrigued me. So after some time I decided I wanted to help and be a part of the team. As it happens to be I’m a sound guy, so I applied for the position in sound post-production. Also I can relate/associate myself with one on the characters from this movie – Fraser. He kind of reminds me of myself and my friends back in the romantic teenage years. We were not stealing bikes per se but we were not up to any good also. Furthermore I like working on international projects as I get to meet and make contact with new people.

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