Last Updated on 05/09/2024 by Arun jain
Debuting tomorrow TIFF Before heading to competition slots at San Sebastian and London, Laura Carreraof on the foaling Breakout from this year’s festival circuit looks set to be a British title.
Recent examples include Charlotte Wells After the sun and Georgia Oakleys Blue Jean. and Carrera on the foalingLatest feature from Sixteen filmsdepicts an equally dark and politically driven slice of contemporary society. The film follows Aurora, a young Portuguese woman who struggles to make ends meet during a week in her adopted home in Glasgow, Scotland. Long days spent grabbing packages off the shelves for an unnamed e-commerce giant barely covered the bills, leaving her exhausted and desperate for more.
Synopsis: Aurora seeks to resist loneliness, isolation and the ensuing small talk that threatens her sense of self. Set against a landscape dominated by the algorithm-driven gig economy, designed to keep us apart.
Look at the timeline
on the foaling Marks Carrera’s feature film debut. The Portuguese-born filmmaker is known for his shorts shiftwhich debuted at Venice, and red hill2019 BAFTA Scotland Nominee. The film, along with Athena Rachel Tsangari harvestSixteen Films is also one of the first features of the post-Ken Loach era. Jack Thomas-O’Brien, now the company’s chief producer, produced the picture alongside Portuguese-based BRO Cinema. Supporters include BBC Film, the BFI and Screen Scotland. Vincent Marvel’s Goodfellas Handling sales.
“This process has taken us four years. It seems slow but for a lot of other people it’s very fast,” Thomas-O’Brien said of the film’s journey to the big screen. “Thankfully we haven’t had any kind of crazy crisis, which I think speaks to the strength of Laura and my relationship.”
Below, Carreira and Thomas-O’Brien discuss how they mounted their debut feature, how their collaboration began, and the nuances of making good political cinema.
TIFF runs from September 6 to 15.
DEADLINE: Laura, are you from Portugal? How did you get here to make this film?
Laura Carrera: I ask myself that every day. Yes, I’m from Portugal. I studied cinema in Lisbon. When I was a teenager, Portugal was going through a major economic crisis and the prospects for developing a filmmaking career were not good. So one of my teachers said I should look into this film directing course at Edinburgh College of Art. I was 18 when I moved to Scotland, so it was a defining moment in my life. I was getting my first job, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. And, at some point, I never quit.
DEADLINE: How did you two meet?
Jack Thomas-O’Brien: We met on Zoom. It was the pandemic and I was starting to explore the first project I would make as a producer in sixteen films. We knew that Ken [Loach] His last film was making, so we were thinking about what’s next. Laura actually took to Twitter. It makes our talent-spotting process chaotic as it sometimes is, but it works. However this is not a sign for everyone to reach out to me on Twitter. Laura was already in touch with the BBC film. I was also talking to a BBC film about a couple of things, so heard about Laura by chance. She had just finished making her short shiftwhich was debuting at Venice.
Career: BBC Film also helped me because I think a day after I messaged you on Twitter, they said you should get in touch with a producer called Jack. I said, ok, I did yesterday. So it all worked.
DEADLINE: Laura, did you already have the idea of On Falling in mind when you arrived?
Career: Yes, I had the first draft.
Thomas-O’Brien: A really good first draft.
Career: So I finished my short during the pandemic. I wasn’t sure when the world would start again, so I took the time to write my first feature. I didn’t have a proper producer or any support, but I thought I’d put the idea down on paper. It was a continuation of themes from my short, so I knew I would write about financial vulnerability and our relationship with work. Those are two really important topics for me, but as I started writing it evolved to explore not only our relationship with work but the consequences of this kind of work on the individual.
Deadline: I know Jack and Sixteen have a track record of making films that are clearly politically and philosophically rich. Laura, where does your political background come from?
Career: I think I became preoccupied with the theme of work when I got my first job in Scotland. I was excited at the thought of getting my first job and becoming financially independent. And then I got my first job and that changed quickly. It made the future look very scary. It makes me look at the people around me and think about how we all devote so much of our lives to work, and I don’t fully understand why. I don’t think it should be this way. And that shock was exacerbated by regulated mobility in the workplace. I really struggle with it. Film is a really good medium to try and interrogate this perspective a bit more. My parents are also quite left-wing, so they definitely influenced how I see the world.
DEADLINE: Where did the title ‘On Falling’ come from?
Career: I really struggled with the title. We had a few different ones that I hated. And then a friend of mine suggested on the foaling. When he read the script, he described the film as a continuous descent. And I could see it. The character is losing almost solid ground and trying to get back up.
Thomas-O’Brien: The name also captured some ambiguity. It changes expectations about what is to come. It is also poetic. So that was kind of how it came about. And it’s just stuck because actually you don’t want to define anything too clearly, especially with a film like this, which is such a direct, intimate journey. It is much more than just working in a warehouse.
DEADLINE: Speaking of ambiguity, Jack, as a producer, how do you shepherd a project like this to make sure it doesn’t become didactic?
Thomas-O’Brien: I don’t really think about it, to be honest. It’s up to the director. It’s all about protecting the director’s voice and protecting the film they want to make because as soon as you start overanalyzing the details and demanding things be said, you end up with this mishmash of different voices in the room and you Will end up with a film. Which is felt everywhere. I think it’s worth removing the Ken Loach reference. He is a wonderful, political filmmaker who is great to work with. We have had a wonderful time. But we also want to make films that are director-led with filmmakers who have their own unique voice and way of telling stories. on the foaling Not like a Ken Loach movie. It talks about the same subject, but it’s totally Laura’s film, and we’ve made sure to protect it. I’m not really against didactic storytelling that’s on the nose about its politics. But that’s not necessarily who Laura wants to film with on the foaling.
DEADLINE: Jack, it’s very difficult for a first-time British producer. How was the process for you? Was it harder than you expected?
Thomas-O’Brien: It is difficult to sum it up because the process has taken us four years. It seems slow but for many others it is very fast. Laura has been working on this longer than that and before I was on the project Laura had a Portuguese producer, Bro Cinema, who was a great partner and helped us raise the first small share. And then Goodfellas, who are marketing the film, came in really early and committed to the project and to Laura. So those two collaborators made the process a lot easier, and then ultimately we had brilliant support from the BFI, the BBC and Screen Scotland. Luckily we haven’t had any kind of crazy crisis, which I think speaks to the strength of Laura and my relationship. We have a really strong working relationship and we talk about everything. This is how you have to navigate things. My philosophy is that the director directs and the producer produces. If you stay in your own lane and communicate well, it avoids a lot of difficult things.
DEADLINE: How long did you shoot and what was the process like? The film avoids looking like a soap opera, a criticism often leveled at debut British films.
Career: We shot for five weeks and we used Ari. I will give a lot of credit to our DOP Carl Kurten. He worked on two of my shorts and we tried to be very careful about the visual choices we made. We’ve created a visual treat of sorts to guide us. A big part of that was trying to bring the character’s psychological state into the images, trying to convey those little moments of loneliness and anxiety.
Deadline: Joanna Santos, your lead actress, is fantastic. Where did you find her?
Career: We did a really big casting call in Portugal and we looked at something like 500 tapes of both professional actresses and non-professional actresses. There were really good actresses, but I think we knew it the moment we saw Joanna’s self-tape. There was something in his expression. It was strange because her face didn’t say much but you could feel what she was communicating through her expressions.
Deadline: Goodfellas is selling the film. What would be the ideal location for this film for both of you?
Career: Personally, as a film buff, I would love to see it in cinemas. I love going to the cinema and I would like people to see this collectively. But obviously, I would like as many people as possible to see the film.
Thomas-O’Brien: It’s funny with Ken Loach’s movies that I always loved he would eventually get on TV because then millions of people could watch them. But I think with a film like this, every part of the production is conducive to seeing it on the big screen. I think you want a big screen effect with this one. This is a small film on an intimate subject but it should also feel like a big experience. And I think that’s why we want to see it in cinemas.
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