A film about human connection

We’ve been living through tough times, people need to smile, people need to laugh, I want to be at the heart of a film that will make that happen. It’s a duty that I’m proud to carry out. Grief is such a knotty, protean feeling. It’s unpredictable and hard to define. I'm drawn to the idea that you can find humour, you can find connection in these darker moments. I want to tell this story because it approaches grief in a fresh way. We take the outside figure of Gorka and we read grief through his perspective. 

This is a film about human connection, a film that celebrates the fact that even practical strangers can offer comfort and hope to each other. Yes, it’s a comedy. But that’s exactly why this story feels truthful. Tragic events like these are complex, they are full of funny, sad, confusing and hopeful reactions that define what it means to be human.

Gorka is a story that I wrote based on real experiences from my life. In some way, it’s a reflection of the dynamics within my own family. It's the first thing I've directed and I wanted to tell a story that’s close to me. 

My ambition for this film is to make people see the light in the darkness, to view tragic, sad events as more than these emotionally fixed moments in life. People like to call it ‘black comedy’, I prefer to call it real life. A French exchange student is thrown into the middle of a very British dynamic. 

It's a film that was crafted out of love; my aim was to do this story justice- to find that emotion, that human core of the narrative. My desire is to kick off my directing career with a film that tells the world about who I am, what I’ve experienced. It’s definitely an insight into what sort of stories I hope to tell in the future. As a director, I hope it stands as an exhibition of my potential- an example of how I can tell a story in a contained amount of time. 

Above all, this is a hopeful story. A story with a cheerful ending- a cathartic narrative that leaves us and its characters with a sense of belonging and acceptance.

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