Killing My Girl

The more I was researching the subject of sex-selective abortion, the more I realized its scale. As it was expected, female feticide is the most common form of selective abortion. Statistics showcase the magnitude of that. By 2011 over 160 million female feticides have happened worldwide. Such practices appear to take place mostly in China, India and Pakistan. However, scholars call attention to the rest of the world as well, as the phenomenon has expanded to the West.

I am Greek, having been educated in England, affected by European cultural traditions. However, the film deals with the story of a South Asian woman and her family. Under any perspective, my connection with Asian societies and customs is limited. I have personal experience though of Asian communities residing in Europe and especially in England. I wanted to combine all this elements together in the film; embed my personal aesthetics into a story with Asian fundamentals, having Europe as the backdrop. In that way, it becomes multi-layered. It starts having additional themes such as crossing borders as well as the idea of home and the reminiscence of it.

I have always wanted Killing My Girl to be a sheer expression of my personal vision. I wanted to express the characters’ reality in the way I understand it. I did not worry at any moment of showcasing lack of verisimilitude in the expression of the events. I only cared about the verisimilitude of the events themselves.

The script is written in an entirely subjective way. The story is being told through the main character’s eyes, implying that any stylistic choices made, should express her mentality. Making the film in black and white was a decision that had to be thought exhaustively before moving ahead with it. I have always been certain though that that would be the clearest expression of the psychological as well as physical state of the protagonist during the period of her life depicted in the film. Being a pessimist played a role as well I guess. As BélaTarr uses black and white to express his personal pessimism on the world, I used it to express my personal repulsion and disappointment on humanity.

It is a personal film through which I have learned even more about myself. Most importantly, though, I learned to care more about the world around me. It made me even more anxious to use my cinematic voice and speak about it, to express myself. As James Lee Burke said, “There is no higher form of artistic expression then film”. And I am afraid I have to agree with him.

Tasos Giapoutzis, London, 9 May 2014.