Coming Home

The tense, family drama, Coming Home was brought having placed in the Blue Cat Screenwriting contest, so realised immediately that it had the potential to be an excellent film and I was thus delighted to join the team. Even though I knew it would be a demanding shoot, I could see that it was one that would offer me the opportunity to challenge myself and hone my craft as a first-time professional director and as it was a longer short than my previous films (22 minutes), I sensed it would do more to bridge the gap between shorts and features than making another shorter film.

I see the film as an important step in bringing normal, gay families to the screen. I have observed how many LGBTQ+ films focus on sexuality, but few seemed to concentrate on gay people's everyday normal lives as parents bringing up children. Coming Home differs from its predecessors by celebrating homosexuality within a family and by having the importance of family stability at its heart. It also challenges the stereotypes of the male farmer which are regularly perpetuated in films even now in this era of attempting to recognise the importance of diversity and #MeToo.

I am also delighted and proud, as a member of the LGBTQ community, to have directed a film starring a transgender actress in a cis-gender role. Rebecca Root is a wonderfully talented actress who excelled in her capture of farmer Andie's independence and courage, when left to face up to the responsibility of telling her son Archie, that his mummy - Andie's wife, isn't coming home. I wanted to enable the audience to experience Andie's anguish and guilt at the distress her own actions have caused to both her wife and son and how even the suggestion of possible betrayal can affect a family so grievously. Rebecca did the job wonderfully. Her heart-breaking performance as Andie was everything I worked towards and hoped it would be.

The casting of such able and seasoned actors as Rebecca, Ray Castleton, Tina Barnes, Rachel Brownstein, Wendi Walker, Kat Sellner and Amy Popplewell, gave me the chance to communicate my ideas and be perfectly understood. They brought the very best performances I could have asked for, and their professionalism provided a great example for our newcomer, eight year old James Jakes in his first ever film role.

It was important for me that the family dynamic and history of the Birley family was fully understood by the actors, and I requested back stories from the writer, for each of them. This helped to ensure a realistic and familiar dynamic between the members of the cast which shows beautifully in their portrayal of the Birley family on screen.

It was important to me that the Birleys felt like an authentic, Yorkshire farming family and I believe this was achieved.
The backdrop of the stunning, but merciless Yorkshire Moors perfectly reflected the loneliness of the protagonist and accentuated the terror the Birleys feel when little Archie is lost in the hills. The snow-capped Moors encapsulate the emotion of the piece and when I came across Blakey Ridge whilst scouting for locations, I knew it would provide us with the perfect location for Andie's desperate search.

I am very proud of how we managed to make such a complex and challenging film on a very modest budget, but also of the progress we made in ensuring gender diversity in the film. In the interests of improving diversity in the industry, throughout all stages of production, I and the female producers aimed to hire women, particularly in Head of Department positions wherever possible and we happily ended up with a greater than 50:50 split of women:men in both cast and crew.

I would dearly love our ground-breaking film to be acknowledged and generate attention and discussion around the world, not only in LGBTQ+ cinema, but in the film industry as a whole.