My Name is Beth

Beth, a teenage girl in desperate need of a place to stay visits her estranged grandmother in the remote Scottish countryside. To her surprise, Verity, her grandmother, mistakes Beth for a council worker.
Trauma and misunderstandings from the past are uncovered as Beth navigates the fickle relationship with her grandmother.
Beth learns a whole new side of her broken family and her own grandmother, laying a foundation for their bittersweet relationship.

  • Sayee Gogate
    Director
  • Alice Clark
    Writer
  • Ines Serrano de Haro Perez
    Producer
  • Leah Balmforth
    Key Cast
    "Beth"
  • Barbara Horne
    Key Cast
    "Verity"
  • Sean Monroe
    Cinematographer
  • Mahesh Raghavan
    Editor
  • Amogh Inamdar
    Composer
  • Matt Part
    Sound Designer
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Drama
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 49 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 1, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.39:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Edinburgh Napier University
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Glasgow Short Film Festival
    Glasgow
    United Kingdom
    March 25, 2023
    Winner, Young Scottish Filmmaker Prize
  • Pune Short Film Festival
    Pune
    India
    May 26, 2023
  • World of Film International Festival
    Glasgow
    United Kingdom
    November 5, 2023
Director Biography - Sayee Gogate

After exploring various roles in Film and Theatre in India, from acting to writing and Assistant Directing, Sayee Gogate came to the UK to build on her directing skills. She graduated from Screen Academy Scotland in Film Directing while focusing on exploring the Scottish culture and stories through all her student projects.
Sayee loves exploring diverse characters, cultures, and experiences through her filmmaking often through the lens of family dynamics.
She believes that making films is the best way to understand people and likes to put human emotions and interrelations under the microscope.

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Director Statement

As someone who grew up watching two-dimensional female characters being used as nothing more than plot tools, when it was my turn to make a film, I knew it had to be about the messy, complex, resilient, magnificent nature of female relationships.

The idea for ‘My Name is Beth’ came from the loss I felt after my own grandmother passed away and the realization that I had lost her in more ways than one. I didn’t realize for a long time that I never knew my grandma as more than a grandmother, separate from the context of that relationship, just as the amazing individual she was.

When I approached Alice, our brilliant writer, with nothing more than a vague idea, the first thing we agreed upon was that we wanted to tell a story about these two dynamic women and give them the room to be imperfect, bring them off the pedestal, and let them just be them!
I worked with Ines, my Producer, and Alice for months, trying to find the essence of who these two women were. We went back and forth on draft after draft trying to find the right tone. We did in-depth research, talked to experts, and relied on our acquaintances’ personal experiences with dementia to make sure we did our best to give justice to the issue in the short span of the film.

We scoured the Scottish countryside looking for a house that would encapsulate Verity’s personality. Signify who she was, standing strong even through her loneliness. We wanted Beth to enter her bubble and give them the space and isolation that they needed to shed the ties and restrictions of the outside world and be their own, pure, unfiltered self.

Sean, the DOP, and I worked on finding the right look and style for the film. We went through references and ideas ranging from sketches to film stills to find the best possible way to portray the emotions through every frame. We used a mixture of smooth static shots and shaky handheld to signify the fickle nature of their relationship.

‘My Name is Beth’ is a product of months of hard work, navigating the challenges of working on a student budget through the disasters of cast members getting Covid to the equipment breaking down in the middle of the shoot.

I hope the film warms the viewers’ hearts but also breaks them a little and maybe gives them that nudge to call their loved ones just to say "Hi."