Interview Special: THE DRAFT

Personal experience of discrimination. The story was written as an assignment at University 10 years ago. Kim was meant to write something she not only felt strong about but experienced in some way and felt it was important to share.

The film looks at motherhood by choice among best friends and the discrimination they can face in society – we all have experienced it in some form. And the female cast and crew, women we know, have or will experience it in their lifetime.

Have you always been interested in the storytelling potential in a future context? 

Kim: I love sci-fi but don’t always have the courage to write it because it can be such a huge world but some stories can reach an audience when placed in a futuristic lens. I purposely set The Draft not too far in the future because I don’t believe it is that far away. When we are shown what is possible it can have an impact and perhaps open a necessary conversation.

Anke: Having a scientific background, I find sci-fi a great way to look into a possible future. It gives me the opportunity to take scientific facts and expand them with fiction. And hopefully that way, people will think about what could happen if we continue to act as we do now.

Raphaela: I really enjoy playing with the borderline of realism and fantasy to spotlight important themes. Going into the supernatural allows you to express ideas in a larger than life way, potentially creating a bigger shock effect/ impact. And it‘s also a lot of fun to take inspiration from science but then let your mind run wild with it.

Kim: Although the story is set in a near future, an attempt at population control through limitation of births is not unfamiliar and neither is a draft system – military – but the use of a lottery to showcase a lack of freedom of choice makes it uniquely British fun and futuristic but also dark and sinister.

Tell us about your cast.

Anke has been working as an actor for more than 10 years in the industry. She has many film and TV credits and was selected as a Cannes Talent by the Cannes film festival 2018.

Leah Charles King is a TV presenter in real life. She has years of experience in the music, radio and TV worlds and is a presenter on the show, A Place In The Sun at Channel 4. 

Eve Cong is in the early stages of her budding acting career and The Draft is her first film at a festival.

Tell us about your production team.

Everyone in our team was very passionate about the project and the topic itself. We worked with some amazing creatives, for example:

Samira Oberberg, our DOP who brought all her knowledge to create the perfect visual concept for the film and our 1st AC, Irys Steel, who kept the focus spot on, despite a crazy choreography.

Roberta Bononi, our editor who crafted a brilliantly creative edit and gave the film a new dynamic. She is a Governor on the Board of British Film Editors (BFE) and her feature Redenzione (Redemption) was in the official selection at the Turin Film Festival in 2022. She’s currently cutting 7 Keys with writer-director Joy Wilkinson.

Our creative consultant Hasko Sadrina, who helped us to take this project to another level.

Benjamin Christ who ensured we had fantastic on-set sound despite noisy lights and sizzling dresses.

Shahidul Khan, our DIT but really a man of all trades, who helped out anywhere and everywhere he could.

Sounita Rachel Chummun and her brand MIASHAN designed our beautiful dresses. The dresses worn on set of The Draft were recently featured in MIASHAN’s latest collection shown at Paris Fashion Week A/W23 and in numerous fashion magazine publications globally.

Thanks to Ermar Alexander, our stunt coordinator from FMA London, we discovered that slap-training is one of the best ways to build a friendship between actresses.

Sascha Blank did a wonderful job and composed the perfect score for our lottery show.

We were also incredibly lucky to find investors who were both passionate about the topic as well as willing to trust us and our vision. For our executive producer, Ramon Colomina – he has two daughters – it was so important to him to invest in this project for them. And for our associate producer, Angelita Aquino, the script resonated with her. She even flew in from the US to be on set while filming.

Where did you shoot and for how long?

We shot for two days on the virtual production stage at Garden Studios in London – a completely new experience for us all to work with the technology behind shows like “The Mandalorian“.

What issues and themes are you keen to explore in future work?

Women’s rights and freedom of choice. And telling stories that impact our world and force viewers to reexamine their own lives, habits, and the environments they live in. Rights of passage stories of interesting people coming into their own power.

The film deals with the issue of motherly choice. What are you hoping will be the ideal impact on people for this short?

Discussion, to talk openly about choice of motherhood rather than judgemental whispers behind each others back. Awareness of the subtle discrimination present, be more supportive of those who choose not to be mothers in the same positive way for those who choose to be.

Are there plans to show this short to politicians as a point of reference?

It may be more beneficial to show the short to columnists who already have the ear of politicians.

There are a few Guardian reporters, political and social vloggers who have written about this very topic. We intend to reach out and share our film with them and perhaps garner a review or commentary we can use to propel the film and topic.

In this regard, if anyone is interested in hearing more about our project, please reach out.

THE DRAFT is designed as a proof of concept for a possible feature version. What would you like to expand on if you were to make it into a feature?

Well, there’s no question “if”. We are going to make it – one way or  another 😉

We want to expand the world, both sides of the conversation, the friendship, the science behind the story, the similarity to our world now, continued diversity in age, race, gender in front and behind the lens. And to dive deeper into the emotional turmoil of the two main characters.

We are in early development and are looking for collaborators.

Who and what are your key cinematic influences?

The Hunger Games, The Morning Show, What Happened To Monday?, Snowpiercer, The Stepford Wives, Don’t Worry Darling, Children of Men, The Giver, The Island, Gattaca – to name a few. As well some influences from Reality TV. We sometimes jokingly called the film “Britain‘s Next Top Mother”

Gender is a big issue in entertainment at the moment. What progress do you feel has been made in light of recent initiatives like #MeToo and #Times Up?

It is hard to measure progress when rights are being eroded across the world in countries that are supposed to be world leading. But there has been change and women are no longer afraid to speak out.

How does getting into a festival like the London Independent help your short in the long run?

So much happens via word of mouth and connecting with other filmmakers.

This festival is well respected by indie filmmakers and it gives us insight into how the film is received by our peers and audience and how strong an idea we have, how we can make it better which boosts our confidence with any further developments.

If we make connections then that can only heighten the feature and other projects down the line.

Finally, what are you most proud of about this short?

That the script touched so many women and also men and we got it done! Kim wrote the script years before and when we decided to produce it, it won the Equal competition and won in kind support by Procam Take 2 and Picture Shop in 2020.

Then we faced the struggles like all filmmakers to find the courage and additional funding over a pandemic. We are happy we found investors who believed in us and the film, enabled us to find such a great cast and crew and finally bring the story to the screen!

Thanks again to everyone who helped us to bring this important story to life!

The London Independent Film Festival runs from 14th – 23rd April 2023.

For info and tickets, please go to:

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