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.

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?

~ continue...

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I'm writing this in my shed, the place I retreat to when trying to work. On the wall in front of me is a series of index cards as I plot out my next film, Tilo In Real Life, an urban fairytale that I intend to shoot over the coming months. Strange to think that this is where I wrote Voyageuse a few years ago, not knowing if I would ever make the film.

So when I heard the news yesterday that Siân Phillips has received a nomination for Best Actress (Film) in the BAFTA Scotland Awards, I sat in my usual chair, pleased in the knowledge that not only did I make V but that it's given pleasure to a lot of people and gained recognition from my peers, many of whom wish me well though some, I'm sure, are perplexed by my no-budget, outlier movie.

~ continue...

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