Ashes to Ashes

Sarah's mother is dying, but no support is forthcoming from her gym junkie boyfriend. This bittersweet, black comedy tale of loss and a breakdown of a relationship, based on the writer's personal experience, explores the taboo subject of death. The twist, provides light relief at a distressing time.

  • Nicola Gaughan
    Writer
    The Eyes Have it, What did you do in the war Grandad?
  • Project Type:
    Student, Short Script
  • Number of Pages:
    9
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - City Lit
Writer Biography - Nicola Gaughan

Nicola is an experienced graphic designer (including work for
Disney) and LRPS qualified photographer. Over the last few years
she developed an interest in filmmaking and has acted as a stills
photographer, focus puller, production/lighting assistant, runner/driver and twice has had a small cameo acting roles for several small independent films (and occasionally as a Supporting Artist (extra) in professional TV/film productions). She completed the Film Foundation Fortnight at London Film Academy where she was DOP and co-writer/co-editor on Slasher, a one minute short.
She was stills photographer in Curtains, a short by director Nathan Evans, which screened at the BFI Flare Festival and Rough and Ready, a comedy which starred page 3 girl Peta Todd. She was also a photographer at the Raindance Film Festival, photographing Joanna Lumley, Johnny McDaid and other celebrities.
Her first short that she wrote, produced in partnership with Brendan Lonergan (creature effects artist in the film industry), was What did you do in the war Grandad?, which won Best Documentary in the We Make Films Not Excuses film festival in 2020. She has also written a feature film about her uncle’s WW2 RAF career (The Ghosts of Wellington x3757) and has a second feature script in synopsis stage (initial title: Betrayal in Alexandria - a WW1 story inspired by a real life family story), and 2 more feature scripts in early ideas stage.

She is currently enrolled on the MA in Film Practice at Bournemouth Online University and undertook a Ways into Screenwriting course at City Lit in September 2023, where she wrote the short script Ashes to Ashes, based on happenings around the death of her mother, which is a Finalist in the Barcelona Indie Awards 2024. Her other short script The Eyes Have It was an Official Selection in the London Lift Off Festival in December 2023. Nicola is currently putting together a funding application to put this short into production.

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Writer Statement

This script is very much based on events surrounding the death of my mother. Despite it being such an emotionally charged time, there were moments of humour, including the priest falling asleep in the service, the funeral director handing me my parents ashes in a hessian supermarket bag, trying to decide just how to secure the ashes in my car and my cousin mistaking the urns of ashes for my then partner's protein shake. When I mentioned this to a friend, they found it really funny, so I decided to write a script about it.