Sophia Carr-Gomm on Return

Sophia Carr-Gomm is the director of short film Nobody’s Darling, which we reviewed when it screened at the London Short Film Festival. She has more recently directed Return.

How has the reception and journey of Nobody’s Darling impacted your career going forward? Have they afforded you certain opportunities?

’Nobody’s Darling’s festival run included London Short Film Festival, London Independent Festival, Unrestricted View, Hidden Film Festival, Cinecity, Little Wing, was nominated for Best Screenplay for Lift-Off Global Network and played as the introductory short at London Film Week to a preview of ’Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. Since the success of ’Nobody’s Darling’ I was then asked to direct a short, ‘Mine’, that screened at Raindance and I wrote and directed a Paternity Leave campaign for the charity Pregnant Then Screwed that went viral on instagram. I was asked to then be a judge as part of London Film Week for a subsequent festival and I was interviewed by Pitch Fanzine and featured as ’talent to watch’.

What compelled you to make Return?

I was commissioned by the Fieri Consort, funded by the Genesis Foundation to create a film for a 30 minute piece of music called ‘A Short Walk’ by the Fieri Consort and through that project, ‘Return’ was made, and a new piece of music composed especially for it. It was a creative gift given to me by Fieri and essentially started as a response to the themes of the original piece of music and then ‘Return’ was born out of that as we distilled the story and themes of the original piece. So, quite a roundabout and unusual way to create a film but has proved to be very enriching. The themes within the original music and subsequently what ‘Return’ became are: grief, isolation, loneliness, love, life, death and suicide. These themes are deeply important to me, as I have experienced these themes in my life and most people have, so it really resonates.

Can you tell us a bit more about casting and working with Peter Faulkner?

After I wrote the film, Peter was the actor who immediately came to mind. His energy, his presence and his face kept playing in my mind’s eye as I imagined the film. I approached him with the offer, and he loved the concept, the script and agreed to be in it. The story was very close to his life story, having lost his daughter to cystic fibrosis and his wife to cancer a few years later, Peter was very familiar with isolation, grief and loss. Working with him was wonderful. He was such a receptive and creative actor. He was also very sure of himself so I could trust that we could be in honest communication with one another. Peter took his own life five months after we finished filming. He had always struggled with his mental health since the passing of the two he loved most. This film was the last film he was in and it was such a beautiful experience working in the stunning and evocative landscapes with him, he threw his whole self into everything he did and always had an easy going attitude and good sense of humour. I will always remember him making friends with the wild horses we came across on the shoot. All the crew and actors loved him, and we miss him greatly. It makes it even more pertinent to get ‘Return’ out there, for his legacy.

Tell us more about the location of the shoot.

We shot all over the place! Sussex, the New Forest and Scotland. The recce’s were a lot of fun, with our amazing producer Victoria Fäh and brilliant cinematographer Max Paterson. Jumping in our car and searching for places I had written, and finding places to be even better than expected. The locations are a huge part of the storytelling, nature being a character itself within the film. The beauty and the starkness of the locations expresses our leading man’s inner world and the enormity of the world mirroring that of the enormity of a single life in all its glory and tragedy.

Would you say your experience shooting Return was different from previous work in terms of, say, industry support for short films and opportunities?

This shoot felt great as it was funded by Genesis and supported by Fieri. But it was still a low budget short, and we didn’t get any industry support, it was a group of hard working creatives coming together to make it happen with what we had access to. For that, I am eternally grateful.

What are your hopes for the film?

That people are moved by it and think more deeply about the impact of grief and isolation. To get in touch with those who are grieving or lonely for example. I would hope there might be some existential or transcendent thoughts or experience when watching the film, to think or have feelings around the enormity of a single life - the beauty and the tragedy of it. It’s so easy to get caught up in the mundane and the stress, but to remember and recognise the miracle of life and that the single final breath out - that life is gone. There is painful poetry in that. This film I would hope reminds us of how deeply we can love one another. The deeper you grieve is an expression of the depth of your love. I would love for ‘Return’ to be showcased at film festivals and gain the recognition and audience it deserves.

What’s next for you as a director?

I’m developing a documentary around postpartum care, a narrative short to be shot on film and a feature film, a coming of age comedy set in Glasgow. As a Director I have two quite opposite genres I love to make - deep poetry (Return) and coming of age/comedy (Nobody’s Darling). Maybe one day I can fuse them together!