All in Winter Issue 2020
Summer. Richmond cafe. Socially distancing over coffee and banana cake. Dale with her sleek cycling gear greets me with such a contagious smile. I had previously met Dale (online) a couple of weeks ago as a guest on Cinegirl’s podcast. I confess that I was so looking forward to meeting her. Just glancing over her extremely impressive IMDB credits made me nervous and excited at the same time.
Perhaps it´s the same dilemma that every filmmaker shares when we begin: we are driven by a need to tell stories but we can’t really explain why. One film finally enlightened me.
Your Hair is Cute explores the subtleties of everyday racism through a poetic monologue. It was written as the inner-thought of all the things non-white people may want to say, but keep to themselves in so many countless occasions when faced with lenient racism. I wrote it before the Black Lives Matter movement amplified its voice this year.
It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s winter - and it’s here to stay for the next few months! On average, in the UK, we only have approximately 8 hours of daylight and this period is often a blanket of grey skies that make the day-light hours feel pretty bleak and dark. It is no wonder that the population often report having the winter blues and feeling tired all the time.
Winter can affect us both physically and mentally. We may feel more lethargic during the day, need to sleep more, want to eat more calorific foods and may even gain some weight - a little bit like hibernation in animals. However if symptoms become so bad that they begin to interfere with your daily life, it is possible that you are suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Yes, God, Yes is funny, candid, enlightening, warming and clever. Karen Maine’s feature debut tenderly explores budding female sexuality entangled by fears of eternal damnation. Set in Iowa, USA during the early 2000s, it is inspired by the writer-director’s own godly adolescence.
Alice (Natalia Dyers), who attends a strict Catholic high school, is in the midst of a sexual awakening: rewinding thatTitanic scene a few too many times and partaking in an erotic AOL chat. After a rumour circulates around school that she ‘tossed the salad’ of a fellow student, not only will Alice spend the rest of the film trying to find out what the hell that means, but she also attempts to salvage her virtuous reputation at a religious retreat.
Susanna Nicchiarelli shed light on her experience conceiving and directing “Miss Marx”. She touched upon the way the film’s songs resonate with Eleanor Marx’s destructive yet romantic character, her discovery of primary sources such as Eleanor’s childhood drawings, and the way she relates to the protagonist in a personal way, highlighting her contemporaneity.
“Aww!” He said. They always said aww. Tilted their head to one side, knitted their eyebrows together, upturned their mouths. She knew what was next. “Well, I know we haven’t spoken in a while but you’re welcome to spend it at my house. My mum makes the best roast potatoes”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, despite the urge of wanting to create magic behind the lens, if you have chosen this industry, and more specifically the camera department, it’s most likely because you can’t stand the idea of sitting in an office. Yes, you can be constantly filming in studios, not seeing any daylight for months, but don’t you just all love the adrenaline, challenge, and feeling of being on location, especially when it is outside of the city? Travelling to different locations is part of the nature of our work, whether it’s around London, or around the globe. Now… is it all it’s cracked up to be?
