Mdhamiri á Nkemi reflects on a woman’s struggle for identity in his new short drama ‘original skin’.
Film And TV Now spoke with the film-maker about the short.
The film has a kind of Cronenberg-style surrealism about body transformation and perception. What was the start off point for the short?
Cronenberg was definitely a reference!
I love genre filmmaking, especially sci-fi and how it can be a really useful tool to talk about real world issues through a slightly altered lens, allowing you to externalise very internal emotions.
I’m fascinated by the human mind and how we as humans go through this process of reinvention between childhood and adulthood, and so this metaphor came about as a way to talk about the construct of identity in a way that felt contemporary and reflective of the world we currently live in.
The film also deals with LGBTQ+ issues in an unusual way. How did you craft the visual style?
I think I’m a very visual filmmaker.
Right from early development it was important to me to this film felt very subjective, that the audience experience the film through the eyes and ears of the main character.
Film as a medium has this amazing ability to put the viewer in the shoes of another person, and I wanted to take full advantage of that in this short. There’s a scene where our two main character swap bodies, and crafting that took a lot of experimentation.
We gathered a lot of reference of macro impressionistic imagery of the human body, and then spent a day in a studio shooting with a selection of different materials; sand, glass, lights, even wax models of our actors which we melted live on camera to create this immersive, deconstructed experience of what it would be like to become another person.
Tell us about your cast.
We were incredibly lucky to work with our dream leads, Sorcha Groundsell and Olive Gray, who are exceptional talents and very gracious with their time considering this was a relatively low budget short film.
We worked with the wonderful Casting Director Gemma Sykes, and in the lead up to the shoot Sorcha, Olive and I spent time together workshopping and rehearsing some of the more complicated aspects of their performances. We had the complicated challenge of requiring both actors to play their own characters as well each other other, and so we had to figure out ways through performance and body language to communicate which character was which throughout the film.
Interestingly, Sorcha and Olive naturally have very distinctive ways of being in their body, so we leaned into this. We also put together a joint Spotify playlist to help them get into character – this was a hit on the shoot and we ended up sharing the playlist with the crew!
Tell us about your production team.
I got to work with such a talented collection of people on this short – still pinching myself that they all said yes to my crazy vision!
Sabina Smitham, our producer was the first to come on board, and then we developed the script with writer Eve Hedderwick Turner. In the preproduction stage there was a lot of prep work with our HODs – I come from a background of editing which I think made me very obsessive in figuring out every single detail in advance of the shoot.
Adam Singodia, our DP, and I built an exhaustive shot list with storyboards, previs, references, and shots taken during recces. This ended up being incredibly useful during the shoot, especially when we ran out of time and had to decide quickly which shots were the most important to keep.
Charlotte VDH Richardson, our Costume Designer, and I had a lot of fun working on the costumes – we’ve essentially invented a whole world with a different approach to gender than our own, and so we had to figure out how to portray this on screen in an original way. We shot the script out of continuity so we also had the additional confusion of having our actors constantly having to switch costumes with each other as they swapped characters.
Our Production Designer, Luke Moran-Morris, was essential in helping us figure out world building on a limited budget – apart from our one studio day everything was shot on location, so there had to be a lot of efficient use of pre-existing props.
Everyone on our team brought so much to the project, really helping to elevate it to something I could have never achieved on my own.
Where did you shoot and for how long?
We shot over 4 days in East London, which is where I live so I had already built up a list of cool looking locations!
The main character’s journey involves her going from a very closeted domestic life to discovering the outside world, so the challenge for us was how to make East London feel weird and alien from her perspective.
Who and what are your key cinematic influences?
It changes per film, but for ‘original skin’ we referenced Yorgos Lanthimos a lot in terms of the eerie, off-kilter tone he manages to create in every project.
His work is always really bold and I wanted to push myself to find my own bold creative voice in this short. We also talked about Joachim Trier, whose work is very imaginative and he constantly finds ways to break from reality and explore his characters through poetic and impressionistic visual language.
Not a cinematic influence, but the science fiction author Octavia Butler has had a huge influence on me ever since I discovered her endlessly creative but deeply grounded and intimate novels as a child.
What issues and themes are you keen to explore in future work?
I think I’m still discovering that as a filmmaker, but so far everything I do seems to revolve around identity and perception, and the structures we form to define who we are as people, both on an internal level and as a society.
What is it about us that allows us to reinvent ourselves in so many different ways through our lives, each new version a reaction to the last? What does it actually mean to become a ‘better’ person?
I’m interested in films with unconventional and innovative forms of storytelling, supporting distinctive stories navigating new ways of understanding the world.
There is some intimacy on screen in this short. How did you choreograph that moment and did you have an intimacy co-ordinator on set?
We got to work with the incredible intimacy co-ordinator, Jenefer Odell, who came on board very early and worked closely with myself,
Sorcha and Olive on the intimacy in the film. During rehearsals, Jenefer spent time one on one with the cast, making sure they knew and were comfortable with what was required, as well as any details from their previous experiences that might affect how we needed to work with them on set.
Then together we worked out the choreography through a list of anchor points that would guide them through the scene, with room to improvise in-between. Jenefer was absolutely incredible to work with and was instrumental in helping create a safe space where cast and crew felt comfortable and able to deliver their best work.
You graduated from the National Film and Television School. How did that experience shape you both creatively and personally?
The National Film and Television School had a giant effect on who I am as a filmmaker, and my approach to storytelling both practically and creatively.
I had the opportunity to work closely with and learn from peers coming from a huge range of different backgrounds and experiences, and this was a really valuable way to learn that there is no one correct path to making films.
I was the youngest person on a MA course when I started, and so was very much on a journey of figuring out not only my creative voice but who I was as a person, and am very grateful to have had the privilege of going through that in an environment that supported growth and making mistakes.
Would you like to expand on the themes explored in ‘original skin’ into a feature length version?
Definitely!
Sabina, Eve and I are already developing a feature length version right now – not the same story but still very much set inside the same world, exploring similar themes of social structure and identity as a fluid, changing journey of self-expression.
We’re also really interested in exploring moments of crisis, and how it disrupts the carefully constructed internal narratives we build for ourselves.
How does BBC Films help you develop as an an artist and when did they come on board for this project?
I loved working with BBC Film – they essentially are the reason this short exists.
They were running a scheme in partnership with the NFTS where alumni could apply with a short film idea and the selected projected received £35k and support during the whole process from their team of incredibly smart execs, including national treasure Eva Yates.
We were lucky enough to be selected, and I learnt a lot throughout the journey about my personal process as an artist, as well as gaining a lot of self-confidence in my ability to tell stories and lead a team.
Where do you feel progress has been made in LGBTQ+ representation on screen and where do you feel work still needs to be done?
Sadly I don’t think we as a society have come anywhere close to having enough LGBTQ+ representation in film, or for that matter enough representation from any perspective outside the mainstream ’norm’.
I think unfortunately a lot of the people with the power to fund films are still quite narrow-minded when it comes to what kind of voices and stories they’re willing to take a risk on, and until this changes no amount of short term diversity quotas are going to make any serious impact in the long term.
There are some incredible directors telling powerful stories right now – I recently had the pleasure of watching ‘I Saw The TV Glow’ from director Jane Schoenbrun. If I was a studio exec I’d be giving them a blank check right now to make whatever they wanted!
Finally, what are you most proud of about this short?
I made it my personal mission with this short to make the boldest, weirdest thing I could imagine, that included all the crazy ideas we had during development.
Though the film isn’t exactly what I pictured it would be in the beginning (and I don’t think it ever should be if you trust in the process!) I see a lot of that vision carried through and so I’m really proud that we managed to deliver on that.
