00:00No, I just think it's an exemplar of how within what we universally all will experience at some
00:05point in our lives, it is utterly chaotic, unexpected, unwelcome, unpleasant, but eventually
00:12something we have to accept. That's the kind of journey of the film. This is the very opposite
00:18of anything that teaches a lesson. I think there are sort of easy five steps of psychological
00:22solutions and a whole muck sense of the stages of grief. And anyone who's been through that
00:27knows that they get in a mighty jumble in real life. It's not that linear and clean and,
00:32you know. Well, I guess within their chaotic nature of grief in general then, I've heard
00:37a lot of people talking about how there's a lot of humour within the film too, which is
00:40something that shouldn't go hand in hand, but they massively do, don't they? Oh, they do.
00:45Oh, they do. You know, they do. I think because there's that sort of flutter in the belly,
00:52which is, it's the same, it's the diaphragmatic movement between tears and laughter. And it's
00:57sits in the body in the same place. And I think when you're in a very heightened, raw space,
01:02as in after a wake or, I mean, even within a funeral itself, something can set you off.
01:11And then there's also the sort of prohibitive nature of like, you cannot find something funny
01:14when someone you love is being buried. But I don't know. I think it does push us to the
01:20sort of extremes. And so therefore we're touch paper sensitive to everything. And whether
01:25it's the intonation of someone giving a speech or a sort of slightly misaligned phrase, as
01:31has occurred in my life, my experience of funerals, it can make you laugh. It can make you laugh.
01:37And that's, that's okay. That's okay. And a very final one from me. And the memory of
01:42the person as well. You know, you want, you want to bring out the joy of that person. So
01:46that often results in laughter as well. David Thewlis is the voice of the crowing. Yes, he is.
01:50Wonderful. Yeah. Just voice in general. Yes. Yes. Have you worked with him before? And was
01:55he there on set? Oh, I've worked with David before. I've worked with him before, yeah. David,
02:00I love David. I did a film called The Fifth Estate with him, and he played a guardian journalist.
02:04And I was Julian Assange in that. We had a lovely few interactions and scenes together in Brussels
02:10and elsewhere. Yeah, he's a phenomenal, phenomenal talent. I'm hugely fond of him. And, you know,
02:14a real inspiration. His performance in Naked was one of the things I sat in the audience of and went,
02:18I want to do that. I want, that's the, that's the, that's the goal. That's the kind of mountain
02:23that you want to climb. That's the reason why you want to be an actor is to have a challenge
02:27like that and to be as good as that, you know. How did he react when you told him that back
02:32in the day? David, if I've never told you that, and I hope I have, that you're hearing it now
02:36on IT. So...
02:38That's just me. Who are doing the L?
02:45It's been a ten-year journey. Like Odysseus. Exactly like Odysseus, yeah.
02:56I mean, yeah, so he, he, he acquired the rights to adapt the book, which I wrote, uh, ten years
03:02ago almost to the day. Oh, wow. So we've been collaborating for 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
03:07Fair friendship at this point, I guess. Can't stand each other.
03:10You can tell, you can tell. Yeah, no, it's all good. Uh, and actually the, the process
03:15has been so film oriented. Dylan will send film comparisons, actors work, like soundtracks
03:22all the time. So actually to be at home in London, the film is set and shot in London, written
03:28in London. Uh, so yeah, to be here in the kind of home of London film, showing it tonight
03:32is to our friends and families magic. Are we having any more opportunities to take this
03:36film international? I know that it's already been shown at a few international as well.
03:39Like, are you going to showcase the London that you love across the world as well? Yeah.
03:43I mean, we, we, we started at, uh, Sundance. We went to Berlin. We've been to various festivals
03:48in between, going to Spain on Monday, and then it gets its international release at the
03:53end of November. But, um, it's so important to me that it's shown here at the BFO London Film
03:58Festival because I come here every year. I religiously like sort of get the program
04:03and book every ticket and then find I can't go and I'm gifting tickets to people because
04:08like I, I just spend such a lot of money on this festival. So it's about time they gave
04:13something back. Just, just the point is all he's after. Yeah, anything, you know, so this
04:19will do. This is, this is good. This is a pretty good reward. Yeah. It was also, this is
04:23my spiritual home. So I'm an, I'm an associate artist at the South Bank. So for the next three
04:27years, this is my cultural and, uh, creative home. So to kick it off with this is magical.
04:33Yeah. Um, so let's talk about the casting of, uh, Benedict, our lead for this. Um, everyone
04:38always says, Oh, why is that Benedict in mind when I wrote the script? Is that, is that the
04:42case in this? Or actually did he, did you just come to him later on when the character kind
04:46of like, um, I, I sort of never had any specific person in mind when I was writing it because, you
04:54know, I read Max's book and I probably saw myself, you know, it's like, it's, uh, you,
04:59which is the great thing about Max's writing. Is it so empathetic? You kind of just put yourself
05:05in that position, but, um, it happens. I, I was working on this for ages, uh, and just
05:12wanted to get a script in order to send to somebody. And it was round about the time that
05:16the script was finished that I heard that Benedict was a huge fan of the book and it was, well,
05:20let's take a punt, you know, um, first time filmmaker, uh, it's a low budget indie film.
05:25You'll probably say no, but let's just send it to him. And it was such a fast response.
05:30Like he, he read it. He wanted to meet me to make sure I wasn't, you know, dangerous or,
05:34you know, weird or anything, but we met and got, got both quite a large measure, but we got
05:42along and, um, yeah, it just happened very fast. You know, after a long period of like not
05:48knowing whether the film would ever get made when someone like Benedict comes on board,
05:51it suddenly seems like a serious proposition. And he gets it. Well, I mean, the film is
05:56testament to this, but he gets it as an actor, he gets it as a reader, he gets it as an English
06:01person, he gets it as a dad. So he's, he's perfectly positioned to take this to, to, to the,
06:07to the place that only film can take it. If you see what I mean? Like the adaptation requires
06:12Crow to bump to become Crow, dad to become dad, you know? So yeah, some kind of alchemy happened
06:17when he got on board. And, uh, this may be a really boring, rubbish question. Sorry,
06:20but I'm very just curious somewhere between when you have the story and then you had the
06:24story, we lost grief is just in the title of the book to the film. Why? What was the reasoning
06:29for changing the title of us lately? Yeah. What is it? Well, I mean, I'm going to be honest
06:33that there was a, there was some doubt from financiers whether people would go to see a film
06:40with grief is in the title, um, which I never agreed with because this is a film about grief. Uh,
06:45it's a book about grief, you know, taking it out of the title was not something that I would have
06:51chose to do, but you know, I think it opens it up, you know, obviously the, the title is an allusion
06:57to Emily Dickinson's poem, which is hope is the thing with feathers. And I think, you know,
07:01with the title of this film, you can kind of like take both of those, you know, and it's a very
07:08different adaptation to previous adaptations. You know, there's been theater adaptations around the
07:12world. So I think actually it makes it its own thing and introduces a kind of ambivalence around
07:17what, what is the thing, which, which we like. Yeah. Also, if physical media was still popular,
07:23it would be next to the thing in the racks, which is, you know, which is really, you know,
07:28I like that. That's smart thinking. Yeah.
07:34Yeah. I think it's very important to sort of stand up front center for a small independent film
07:37like this. We don't have a huge publicity budget. It's not a question of kind of occupying cultural
07:42space and making the usual kind of loud noise. It's much better to turn up and have people see
07:47the film, discuss it and spread the word themselves through that experience. So therefore it's a more
07:52intimate collegiate and collaborative and communal experience, which I love with, with, with film
07:57festivals. That's, that's why they breathe such life into the idea of what we watch in the dark next
08:03to strangers. And this, you know, this is a film about grief. It's something that we bring something
08:08out into the open. That's not taboo, but we don't have much culture for it. We don't have much depth
08:14of language or ritual in our society, in this country, at least beyond awaken a memorial, perhaps,
08:20and the funeral itself. And we need that. We need that. And part of Max's imagination is
08:26displaying how chaotic it is when we don't have that, you know, this unruly unexpected and unwelcome
08:32visitor, which is pro, which is both an obsession of his work, but manifestation in some ways of
08:39the unexpected nature and twists and turns that grief as a ride is. And so, you know, for what it's
08:45about, as well as the kind of film and the scale of film, it's very important for it to have a life
08:50in a festival. And briefly, it's a London set movie. It is a London set movie, that's true. I mean, we're not,
08:55you know, it's not sort of red buses and, you know, beef heaters and palaces, but it's, it's,
09:02it's a very honest portrayal of a milieu of, you know, a North London flat that I'm very familiar
09:08with. Um, so yeah, it's, it's quite nice to be in that space as well. Yeah.
Comments