Very excited to be involved in this new project with UK-China Film, a rising NGO dedicated to inspiring and encouraging film related collaboration between the UK and Greater China.

This story is still in the early days of development but so much to look forward to. It is a fantastic story based on real events in period costumes. Just how I like it! Looking forward to researching more and seeing how the project develops next year.

Some BTS with Roger King, Hiu Man Chan and Herostratus Films. 

I spent most of this Autumn rehearsing and performing “Kindness” an educational play by Cate Hollis and Mark Wheeller based on the testimony of Susan Pollack MBE - a Holocaust survivor and an extraordinary woman whom I had the chance to meet earlier in the year. 

There are 21 characters in the play performed by 4 actors, hence we all had to multi-role and act in a number of different accents to represent the different people who appeared in Susan’s story. It’s been a busy few weeks as we travelled from London to the Midlands to the North, to Wales and the South. Many corners of UK explored and precious moments shared on stage and behind the scenes. We performed in schools and theatres and one of the highlights of the tour was performing at the Birmingham Old Rep - UK’s first-ever purpose-built rep theatre, a stage where many legends such as Laurence Olivier have performed. 

After the shows, we often had Q&As which made me reflect on the art that is acting and theatre as well as have a chance to speak in more detail about the Shoah, Judaism and Susan’s life.

Q&A

Full cast & the famous Laurence Olivier mirror

Setting up

A photo on stage pre show!

In the dressing room

Photo from backstage

The project and the tour have been supported by the European Jewish Fund and the Association of Jewish Refugees.

Directed by Cate Hollis

Actors - Katrina Michaels, Joseph Creaser, Ed Oulton and Anya Zraykat.

This year I went to my first Cannes Film Festival and absolutely loved the experience. The energy of a screening at a film festival is so very special!

Among the movies I watched and particularly loved was “Corsage” based on the story of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (Queen Sisi), it’s funny, visually stunning and I cried a bit at the end. Vicky Krieps won Best Performance - Un Certain Regard which is totally deserved and I highly recommend watching it as it is coming to cinemas in London soon.

I am still catching up on some of the films I missed myself as they are slowly coming to the cinemas.

Earlier in the year, TikTok launched the global #TikTokShortFilm competition celebrating their partnership with the Festival de Cannes. I enjoyed making my short film as part of the competition using TikTok’s creative tools. I describe it as an experimental film about love and separation. As I’m trying to get into the spirit of creating and sharing my own work this was an excellent exercise for me and the film was entirely created and filmed by myself on my iPhone (with a little help from a friend) in a span of 2 days, so I call it a sort of my own 48-hour challenge. You can see it here.

I hope you like it. I’m a crazy perfectionist so it’s not easy for me to share work which has been done with limited resources and without a film crew but it was fun to make and I do want to share my creativity.