THE manner with which a Bolton filmmaker won a Hollywood Oscar last week is the stuff dreams are made of.

The story of Julie, Foy, 47, who worked as joint producer on The Silent Child, to pick up the coveted award in the Best Live Action short film category, ticks every cinematic box in the book when it comes sheer determination and guts in the face of overwhelming odds.

When Julie, from Harwood, first saw the script of the Silent Child in spring of 2016, she says she was immediately taken by the storyline by actor and friend Rachel Shenton, about a profoundly deaf child living at the edges of her fully hearing siblings and parents.

Julie said: “I have acted with both Rachel and her partner and director, Chris Overton and have known them for a number of years and we set about shooting the montages to the film in a park and a swimming pool in December, 2016.”

However, before the team, which also included Rebecca Harris and Danny Ormerod, they had to appeal for £10,000 to help pay for the actors and production costs.

“In terms of ending up with an Oscar, then £10,000 is peanuts but when you have to raise it from scratch and nobody is prepared to fund it in the way Hollywood films are funded, then it is almost impossible to get out of the blocks.”

However, nine months on and lots of whip rounds from family and friends, a crowdfunding appeal and a few cup cakes sold, the production could finally go ahead for real in early 2017.

To keep costs under control, all the crew and actors shared a house and slept where they could during the shooting which went on over a week and a half.

Julie explained: “Everybody stayed in the house where it was shot, so it was a case of no treats and when filming finished we lay our heads down where we could on settees and floors, but at the same time we were like one big family and that is how it has remained.”

Rachel who plays social worker Joanne in the film is able to communicate with the deaf child Libby, played by Maisie Sly by the use of sign language and singularly helps to turn the girl’s life around.

“Through personal circumstances, Rachel has for a long time has struggled to bring awareness about the deaf community and hard of hearing and for us to be doing this alongside her felt liker we were doing it with her and she was no longer alone.”

Julie describes what it was like to be able to walk down the red carpet and sit alongside some of Hollywood’s best household names as her dad Martin and mum Lynne of Sandown Road waited up into the early hours for the result,

Julie said: “We are not the kind of people that would walk up to some of the famous actors and say ‘Hi I’m Julie’, but after we won they were shaking us by the hands and saying things like “awesome” and “well done”.

“I was sat with Chris and Rachel’s mum and we were near to actor Donald Sutherland, who was very nice and said ‘hi’ to us. It seemed like such a long time before they opened the golden envelope and in that moment time seemed to slow down and when they announced the film as the winner we all burst into tears and I was quite frozen with a big smile on my face. It really is the greatest show on earth and it was also completely bonkers.

“After the awards, we had tickets for the governor’s ball but then our publicist announced we also had tickets for the Vanity Fair after-show party, where security was tight but we just showed the Oscar and no tickets were needed!

“However, because all our family and friends were setting up a party at their airbnb, we left the Vanity Fair party after just 10 minutes, but only after grabbing a cheeseburger for on the way.”

Julie who arrived back in the UK at weekend said there are now plans to screen the film in May in the House of Commons in an effort to get signing into every school in the land and across the globe and there are early plans on Libby’s story with a follow up film in the pipeline.

Finally, Julie has advice for anyone out there who has given up on their dreams. She said: “What’s important to us is that we hope we have genuinely given hope to fellow film makers because we know how hard it is and many people throw in the towel. We hope it will be inspirational to them to keep going and to never give up because if we can do it, so can you.”