Speaking in Tongues

SPEAKING IN TONGUES started out as a satirical, comedic short I made for the London Film School simply called TONGUES.

When I decided to do a feature, however, I wanted to do a more subtle and nuanced approach. The result is a deeply personal film, inspired by my brief but intense period of devout Christianity during college. It was a time when I was searching for meaning, and I found myself drawn into a world of faith that, while powerful, also felt perplexing. I wanted to explore the fervor of that belief, particularly how certain organizations capitalize on young people trying to make sense of their world. Much of what I experienced didn't add up, culminating in a kind of surreal dissonance—kind of like "speaking in tongues," a practice that is meant to be divine but often feels like a jumble of incomprehensible sounds.

My goal was to create a film that remained neutral, neither promoting nor critiquing religion, but rather allowing viewers to arrive at their own conclusions. In this way, I’ve always admired the subtlety of filmmakers like Mike Leigh, particularly in Another Year, where characters’ lives are observed without judgment, or Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, which creates space for internal reflection without moralizing. I also drew inspiration from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir—films that delicately explore human experiences while leaving room for the audience to form their own interpretations.

So far, the responses to Speaking in Tongues have been incredibly rewarding, and I’m grateful to see how audiences engage with its themes in their own ways.