Grilled Cheese

When you start writing and directing, at least in my experience, you don’t realise just how much of yourself is really ending up on screen. You think it’s a brash, brand new idea, outside of the box- only to find years later you start to see parts of yourself poking out of the frames where you least expect it. That it was always well within your box.

With ‘Grilled Cheese’ however, I can see it straight away- and it’s something I hope we can all relate to at some point in our lives. When things get too much, when we feel our lives spinning out of control and are desperate to hold on. The center doesn’t hold. How do we rebuild ourselves? Where do we begin?

Years ago, making my first feature ‘The Good Neighbour’, it was about finding the courage to ask for help. ‘Grilled Cheese’ however, is about the step afterwards, about how important it is to keep something for yourself. Like a seed, those private moments will give way to more open and compassionate ones- with others and yourself. It’s also about just how much we surround ourselves with alternate realities, the idea that everyone we see on social media is actually that happy all the time. When really it’s just a moment, just like it is for Audrey in the film right now.

Working closely with lead actress Amy Cudden in pre-production, I wanted to aim for something that felt truly rooted in this world so that come the third act, the uncanny element of the film is just that- strange, mysterious, potentially unsettling too. So much of this film is about the non-verbal, and thanks to Amy’s searing performance, the non-verbal plays loud and clear, hopefully leaving enough space for the audience to get in there with her as the drama unfolds.

As for the title? Well, that’s what the film is for. Vegan options available.