One is a gritty low-budget drama about a missing schoolgirl, the other a squeaky-clean Hollywood tale about a teenage pop sensation, but Helen and Hannah Montana: The Movie, have one thing in common, according to filmmaker Joe Lawlor.

“They are two film portraits of coming of age which are both out at the moment.”

The 45-year-old London Field’s resident, who makes up Desperate Optimists, the director/writing/producing team behind Helen, with his partner Christine Malloy, tells me: “Personally, I quite like Hannah Montana and our six-year-daughter loves her, but artistically you couldn’t get two more different films.

“Even so, they both explore the same idea, the notion of a teenager going through a crucial transition in her life, from childhood into adulthood, which is fantastic, rich and fertile ground that lends itself to cinema very well.”

Filmed over just 14 days in Dublin, Birmingham, Liverpool and Newcastle; Helen, which recently won the Grand Jury Award at the 2009 Premieres Plans Festival in Angers, France, follows the story of an 18-year-old who is recruited for a police reconstruction to play Joy – a young girl who has vanished without a trace.

Expanding on the story further, Joe adds in his soft Dublin accent: “Helen is marked by disadvantages, she has not had the best start in life, being brought up in different care homes, whereas if you come from a loving home with loving parents, like Joy, you can develop a certain level popularity and confidence and can be more positive.

“When Helen is given this opportunity to be in the police reconstruction for Joy’s disappearance, it is the first time she is noticed, and she seizes it with both hands. Not to manipulate the situation for money or fame, she is looking for love, trying to find some confidence and some answers to these very profound questions about the meaning of her life and identity.”

With no family identity of her own, Helen, who is played by first-time actress Annie Townsend, who was studying Sports Science at Newcastle University when Desperate Optimists discovered her, becomes increasingly obsessed with Joy’s life, befriending her parents, sleeping with her boyfriend and even speaking to her own imagined version of Joy.

“Either you will really love it and find it emotional, tender and delicate,” Joe says, “or you won’t like it at all, and find it distant and challenging.”

Joe first met Christine in 1983 when they were working together on community projects. Then in 1992, after they had both graduated from Dartington Art College, they set up their company under the title Desperate Optimists – a name inspired by the paradoxical title of Nicolas Mosley’s book Hopeful Monsters.

Since then, the couple have explored narrative and performance through experimental live theatre, complex online projects, short 35mm films, and now their first full-length feature. Along the way they have shown at some of the most prestigious European film festivals, winning Best British Short Film Award at the 58th Edinburgh International Film Festival for Who Killed Brown Owl– the first in a series of nine short films from their five-year community-based project Civic Life.

So while it may not have been successful for the likes of Madonna and Guy Ritchie, or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, working together definitely suits Joe and Christine.

“We often get asked what it’s like to work together, and I have no analysis to offer up because we have be doing it for so long. We always answer, ‘just fine’.”

For more information visit www.desperateoptimists.com/helen/