Here we look into the film and how this multi-award-winning all-female team is looking to make a difference to the world.
What is Losing Grace?
Losing Grace is a gripping short film where a mother, forced to flee from her abusive partner with her daughter, finds short-lived refuge.
The Losing Grace short film grew from the passion and drive of Liz Farahadi, who had set out to make a poignant work. She wanted to explore the world of cults, looking into how children are recruited into such closed worlds. But as she developed the story, digging deeper into parent/child relationships, particularly the complex role of mothers, a different theme emerged.
Athena Mandis – an instinctive writer – had subconsciously drawn her own and Farahadi’s experiences into the story that came out of conversations over a period of time.
“We did not set out to make a film about domestic abuse, coercive control, and gas-lighting but these experiences and fears lurking in us found their way into this story through an organic and evolving process.”
The results of the research
Designing the Losing Grace film campaign, Farahadi started researching the system and how it dealt with both abused and abusers, uncovering shocking truths about the systemic abuse, malpractice and failings.
As a survivor of domestic violence herself, she discovered that her experience of a broken and unfit system was not an isolated incident but rather an endemic problem. Social workers and police have no idea how to respond to coercive control and gas-lighting.
What soon became apparent was that the Losing Grace team were dealing with something far greater than just a film. They had found themselves a platform where they could give a voice to women who have experienced and who are experiencing abuse. Women were coming forward and sharing their own experiences.
What is the plot?
Losing Grace looks at the aftermath of abuse and through the eyes of the child. The style is a ‘poetic thriller’ and takes the audience on a visceral journey through trauma and fear that keeps them guessing. It challenges perceptions and probes what lies beneath.
Farahadi states:
We are producing a high-end drama, and raising money is always an interesting challenge. Yet through fundraising endeavours, we have engaged with fantastic people and have forged alliances with a whole array of organisations and individuals who have a stake in this story. We were very clear from the beginning that our crowd-funding campaign was not only going to be about raising money but about reaching out and starting a dialogue about the film.
The Isle of Man has been very supportive of this project, and by visiting them, the Losing Grace team has made some wonderful connections, making them realise the power that stories have. Several charities from the Isle of Man (Space4Action, Safe, Strong, Secure, PrisonWorks, and The White Rose) are looking to use the film as a way of being heard.
We are humbled that we can create work that serves and goes beyond its artistic intention.
Crowd-funding
This film is important, its message will touch people all over the world, and as such, they want to make sure the film travels and is seen as widely as possible. We can support them by pledging and sharing the campaign, trying to reach as many people as possible. They are not only crowd-funding Losing Grace through Green Lit but also applying to organisations and funders to raise the finance needed for this work.
Women in the film industry
An all-female crew has been the foundation stone for the project.
Despite the #MeToo campaign, women in the film industry are still being overlooked for both creative and technical roles. For example, last year, only 2% of all music composers for film and television in TV were women.
Losing Grace are delighted to count, so far, on the talents of Donna McKevitt for music, Nse Asuquo as editor, Beatriz Delgado Mena for DP, and Lian Sheriffe as production manager.
They hope that they will inspire women and girls, and teach them that we do not have to wait for permission; that space is there for us to step into. There is an underlying belief that equal opportunities mean someone has to have less, but we know this is not true.
The Losing Grace team says this:
We have an opportunity to reset the rules that work for women, to take on board that most of us are mothers and that we have had to work hard to demonstrate our worth. Of course, we recognise that other factors create obstacles in the industry—class and race are big ones—but these are of even more significant when they intersect with gender. We want to bring our female sensibility to bear on the project.
The Team
Liz Farahadi – Producer and Actor
Liz Farahadi has starred in a number of independent films, theatre productions, and commercials, working with highly-acclaimed directors such as Jeremy Wooding and award-winning director Marcel Mandu, The Journey.
She wrote the award-winning film Love and Other Stuff. This picked up four awards to date and was nominated for Best World Short and Best of Genre, was shown at eight international film festivals, including the prestigious NYC Soho International Film Festival, where it was in competition.
Her commitment to female-driven narrative is relentless and draws from an unusual and tumultuous past.
Athena Mandis – Writer and Director
Athena is an award-winning filmmaker and lectures in screenwriting, filmmaking and runs the MA in Documentary Practice at Queen Mary, University of London.
Her feature script XENOS was recently selected for the TORINO FILM LAB and won Best Script at the Cyprus International Film Festival.
XENOS was selected and developed through MODERN TALES development scheme. Her other feature THE RETURN HOME was selected for the FILM LONDON/AMPULIA Development Lab 2018.
Her short scripts have been shortlisted for various awards, including SHORE SCRIPTS and BLUE CAT.
Her first short film Backroads (2007), was selected by the British Council for their slate.
In 2009 (–2014), she set up and ran Mile End Films, a production company based at Queen Mary, to give recent graduates professional experience by producing high-end corporate material and short films.
She has written, directed and produced since 2004. Prior to that, she worked for five years as a dramaturg for the devised theatre company David Glass Ensemble. In 2015 she was selected to attend the Filmonomics Programme.
She co-wrote and directed SOUTHGATE TO BRIGHTON, which also won Best Short Film Pitch at Loco Film Festival 2016.
She is currently in preproduction with two short films: LOSING GRACE shooting in autumn 2019 and DAUGHTER by writer Jo Harper. She is also in post-production with a documentary on Cypriot Migration in London.
LOSING GRACE is a stepping-stone to POLLY, a feature in development with Liz and Aradhna.
Aradhna Tayal – Producer
Aradhna is an award-winning producer.
She worked with Tread Softly Productions on the independent feature film Lovelorn, distributed by FilmWorks Entertainment. She has also worked with producer Christine Hartland (WMD, Containment) on Nitrate, a new feature by Gavin Boyter (Sparks and Embers) and Guy Ducker, which won funding from the European Commission MEDIA programme.
She is in development on the feature film Polly, a story of London’s red-light district as told by the real women who work there—written by Liz Farahadi and Athena Mandis.
She has produced numerous short films, with support from Film London and the National Film & Television School.
These include Driver, by BAFTA-nominated director Stephen Fingleton (The Survivalist) and Duncan Wellaway’s Henry Cowell.
Aradhna executive produced The River, starring Clive Russell & Robert Emms.
She is currently developing a new short film, Losing Grace, with Liz Farahadi and director Athena Mandis. She is passionate about championing women in film and telling stories from often marginalised voices.
Aradhna was the founder and director of the BBC Shorts Film Festival. She is a member of Women in Film and Television, a committee member of the Royal Television Society, London and chair of the jury for the RTS Student Awards, London.
https://aegisfilmproductions.com/
https://greenlit.fund/project/losing-grace
https://aegisfilmproductions.com/
Written by the Killing Kittens team.