I’m writing this in early May 2025, several weeks after surgery, my fourth operation in six years. I also moved house a week before being admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. There’s only so much stress a mind and body can take, I reasoned, thinking it was better to struggle through two life-changing events in quick succession rather than stretch them into a distant and uncertain future.
I realise it’s months since I last posted, so long that I had to remind myself what the point of it is. Indeed, at the end of last year, having sold our home and upended our lives, I wondered whether I should continue working at all because while I live to make films, there's something preventing me from doing the thing I long to do. What's going on? A psychic block? Opioid addiction and its attendant brain fog? Or could it be a lack of confidence in both myself and the project?
When the stakes are this low - that is - with no commercial imperative, no money involved and no deadline to meet, perhaps the hardest thing is simply doing it for its own sake. Nor can I shake off the notion, a notion that goes unmentioned in polite society, of how at a subliminal level humans are programmed to close down, no longer open-minded or creative. It's unproven of course. I know people half my age who have already quit on 'the dream'. During a recent radio programme I was shocked to hear a statistic asserting that 80% of people in their 20s and 30s who are claiming Disability Benefit cite mental health issues as the reason. Who can blame them?
Whatever ails me isn't a lack of money per se. It's the desire. And desire is in short supply.
Recently I went to the cinema to see this year’s Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature. Flow is directed by a Latvian, Gints Zilbalodis, on a reputed budget of $3m, a pittance compared to those of its fellow nominees. It’s a charming, simple story about an unlikely bunch of animals brought together by an environmental catastrophe for no apparent purpose other than to cooperate with, or betray, each other. It has its moments and I hope the makers go on to make a profit.
What struck me, however – as it always does – was the absurd number of partners’ logos featured at the start of Flow: co-producers, public, regional and state funders, distributors, sales companies, third-party marketers, festival gurus and other, unspecific associates. Where I once joked with my husband that the list needs to be THAT long because no one believed enough in the project to fund it unilaterally, it speaks to the absurdity of film finance because Flow’s reputed $3 million budget barely covers the cost of legals, PR and the trappings required for the film’s Cannes screening and its Academy Award nomination campaign.
As with so many things at this time of life, filmmaking-as-industry no longer makes sense. When this year’s Academy Award-winning director, Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), and the multi-hyphenate Oscar winner and maker of Anora, Sean Baker - talents presumably at the top of their game - lament the lack of remuneration then something’s wrong.
Closer to home, recently I read how UK TV producers are side-hustling as shelf-stackers and teaching assistants, sorry tales all. Yet again it begs the question – who’s making money in this business? Is the model so broken that a $10m film like The Brutalist can’t wash its face in cinemas, on streamers, on ancillary channels? If so, every filmmaker can take some comfort from that but it won't create great films in the future, given the abuses of AI and cookie cutter franchises.
If creativity relies on self-promotion as part of the job description, then I fail. I fail because I find it impossible to make claims about my multi-hyphenated talents or 'my agency', the kind of luxury assertions so easily made by younger, more confident generations in thrall to self-affirmation. Which in itself could be a mental health affliction, who knows?
Despite my low moods and psychic crises, it cheers me to know there's some silver linings. Having downsized to a (still) sizeable apartment, my husband, Owen and I had to confront that all-too-common problem: how to dispose of stuff acquired over 17 years of living in our last house. Even with hundreds of boxes in storage - books, files, CDs, cassettes, vinyl, VHS tapes, DVDs etc. - I'm daunted at how much space and upkeep my archive needs.
Apart from paperwork, of which there's plenty, over the last three decades, I've acquired hundreds of tapes and film reels of all types and stripes - from MiniDV to 35mm via Hi-8, BetaMax, VHS, U-Matic, D1, Digibeta on video, plus 8mm, S8mm, 16mm and Super16mm film prints and negatives. That's not including up-resed versions and DCPs (Digital Cinema Packages) of my films. Plus the rushes, hundreds of hours' worth.
Archiving is a specialism I leave to my in-house expert, Owen, the rare type of guy who puts our record collection in alphabetical order and our books into 'departments' as if we're running a branch of Waterstones. During the house move, however, it occurred to him that we have not one but three 35mm film prints of Solid Air (2003), one of which has French subtitles. Each print has seven reels - the film's quite long - and with each reel weighing in at about 3.6KG, it's not something to lug around casually. Thankfully none of my other films, all acquired digitally, were committed to film. They also weigh a lot less.
Contemplating my options - to keep or condemn my movie to the local council dump - I was torn. So when Owen contacted the British Film Institute Archive to donate a print, I thought, why not? So far, the archive team seems enthusiastic. So it was a strange coincidence to receive an email from a writer and film researcher, Sam Wigley, also at the BFI, to enquire about my film, One Life Stand (2000) and more specifically, my role as a pioneer of Digital Cinema in the UK in the early 2000s. He tells me he's writing a book for Bloomsbury about the early days of Digital Cinema, so kudos to him for seeking me out.
Reflecting on this, I wonder - where does the time go? This year marks the 25th anniversary of One Life Stand. Of course, it would be great to host an anniversary screening, especially for those who took part in its making, the cast, crew, those who helped along the way to make it happen, the critics who wrote fulsome and generous reviews and the festival programmers who selected it. But how can I make it happen? I could ask local cinemas but I fear their bemusement, rejection or worse, their silence.
More positively, Sam replied to say he learned of a making-of video of OLS and could I send a link? So I watched it for the first time in about 20 years, a 17 minute behind-the-scenes promo that looks as if shot through 60 denier tights. My own younger, chippy demeanour apart, it has some great insights, not least that none of us involved in its making cared less about the format: shot on MiniDV on a Sony VX1000E 3-chip camcorder and edited on a long-defunct NLE (Non Linear Edit) platform, Speed Razor I first saw trialled in a shopfront studio in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin in 1997. It was the missing piece in my quest to bypass the exclusionary black arts of the film industry. It was also a pivotal moment in my life. I told Sam we'll send him a cleaned-up copy of Adventures in DV: Making One Life Stand. What he'll make of it, I've no idea.
Earlier I spoke to Owen about the idea of archiving one's life's work and what it means. What I didn't realise back in 1998 and 1999, when trying to make a film I would - in film terms - reinvent the wheel but, having achieved it, lacked the 'agency' or the need for affirmation. I'm just grateful so many people believed it could be done - Karen M. Smyth, Bobby James Henry, Mike Hood and others too many to mention. We were more interested in making a film, not how it was made.
So here I am on a beautiful sunny evening negotiating - frankly - horrendous and chronic pain each day. Now I understand why I find it so hard to focus on work. Eleven refers to the level of pain I'm in, like the amp featured in the great film, Spinal Tap that belonged to Nigel Tufnell only not as funny. We also have a new home to make ours, plus I have three projects to attend to, first of which is Tilo which I'm pleased to be progressing. That is enough.
The above image is a frame grab from One Life Stand, not to be confused with the Hot Chip album released years later. It shows the actress, Maureen Carr who deservedly won a BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award as Best Actress for her stunning performance - despite rumblings that she wasn't 'new talent' and the suggestion she should have been excluded. My response was that if she was, I would withdraw from all my nominated categories in protest.
Sometimes you have to summon your better self.