writing

What’s been happening?

This year there were a lot of applications made, a lot of writing undertaken, and many ideas put out there. From that were returned some opportunities that have proved really valuable.

EIFF Talent Lab

In August I was selected as one of the participants in the Edinburgh Int. Film Festival Talent Lab. Over the course of two weekends together we heard from industry professionals, drawn from writing, directing, producing, casting. It was intensive and it felt like I learned more about the film industry in those two weekends than I have all year. Really lucky and grateful to have been a part of it.

The full participant list:

Roisin Agnew, Catriona McNicoll, Morna Pearson, Dipo Baruwa-Etti, Mike Callaghan, Eleanor Capaldi, Toby Fell-Holden, Rebekah Fortune, Sarah Grant, Jack King, Josephine Lohoar Self, Ciaran Lyons, Razan Madhoon, Iqbal Mohammed, Eric Romero, Victoria Thomas, Reece Cargan, Chloe Chudasama, Emily Everdee, Rachel Gold, Jamie MacDonald, Nick Rowell, Annika Ranin, Sanam Soleimany

EIFF Talent Lab Participants 2021

New Talent Mentorship

I was lucky enough to be selected for the Glasgow Film Festival’s New Talent Mentorship programme, paired with filmmaker Siri Rødnes (Take Your Partners, Shetland). Over the next 6 months there will be an opportunity to develop my writing, learn more about the industry and find out any useful advice and support that Siri can give. When everything still feels so new and opaque in places, a bit of a guidance through it all is very welcome.

Thanks to Emma and all colleagues at GFF for this opportunity, and to MUBI, in association with ScreenSkills as part of the BFI Future Film Skills Programme, using Funds from the National Lottery.

Full mentee list: Eleanor Capaldi, Alice Cornelia, Bjorn Hanson, Jennifer Heaton, Catriona MacLeod, Paul Sng, Joanne Thomson, Scar Ward.

Round up

Through 2020 – 2021 I’ve been mostly trying to get through this wild ride of the pandemic like everyone else, focusing on writing rather than production for the moment. My last short from the before times, Glue, was nominated for Best of British at Queer Vision Film Festival, in association with Iris Prize and Encounters Film Fest in 2020. Having been accepted into Roze FilmDagen fest in 2020 it received an in person screening in the Netherlands this year. You can see the trailer below.

I’ve been taking part in story development workshops with GMAC, which has provided opportunity to explore ideas and try things out. I was admitted to the RADA Summer Course ‘Taking Text Apart’, which gave me the chance to approach writing from a different perspective and spend some time with Beckett, Checkhov, and Shakespeare.

Thinking of heading into the New Year, while there is most of the mentorship still to go, various opportunities to apply for and numerous ideas in the works, the pandemic has reinforced a sense of wariness, as there’s so much uncertainty. That said, all being well, I’m going to keep working on it all, and hopefully have something to show.

There are lots of people who help you along the way, even at this fledgling stage, and for anyone who’s read a draft, given me feedback, encouraged me when I wondered what on earth I’m doing (and why!) – thanks.

Take care, rest well.

Image Credit: Reflection Room by Flynn Talbot. Photo by E Sumner

Dates to watch out for

The start of the year has seen some more writing make its way into the world – a flash piece on attending Pride for the first time in Turnpike Magazine (available now), a second set during the inside out hours of a rainy night in the Spring edition of Capsule Stories, out March 1. A journalism piece on documentary filmmaker Mariah Garnett’s Trouble, screening as part of the Glasgow Short Film Festival (GSFF), will appear in the Skinny March edition.

Thanks to Femspectives for screening Glue in their Made in Scotland strand this month. Glue has since been accepted into CineQ (16-26 March) and Roze FilmDagen (13 March, Amsterdam) film festivals. The film will also be a part of the GSFF Cafe Flicker made by women night, 19 March.

Will update if and when there’s more to share. Thanks for reading!

Slipping

Slipping
Peering, leaning, circling, nearing, the deep dark of the hole in the ground pulls at my shoelaces. I jerk my foot away but it’s not far and my torso barely turns. It knows what’s down there, which is why I won’t run.
Smiles were nice for a period of time but then they started to feel strange on the inside of my mouth, like a bit of food that won’t be chewed and has to be spat out. Happiness didn’t fit on my face, even as a mask it was the wrong size and the elastic dug into my ears.
EC Nov 2019
Pic from auntyflo.com

Memorial to a Marriage

Hand to hand,

Toe to toe,
Nose to nose, close… You exhale I breathe in.
It’s the morning, before the papers,
There’s sleep in your eyes,
Dreamy half-whispered words
Surf along the sunrise.
We are golden
in this embrace,
formed out of grace, and patience.
We love,
Which every law in every land
Says we do not deserve.
There’s a defiance in the warmth,
A roar in the whispers
Edges to the tummy rolls
and curves of thighs
and the heft.
The permanence of stone or bronze challenges –
“Test our mettle”
If you won’t make space,
we’ll make a monument to ourselves

E.C.

In response to Patricia Cronin’s sculpture, Memorial to a Marriage. 

 

Gutter 18

It has been a delight and the highlight of my year – being published in Gutter Magazine. They have published work by so many writers I look up to, so to be in their company is immense. This edition also came with a supplement called The Freedom Papers, with some essential words on the subject. Together this edition was the most successful publication at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

My story is called Flying Saucers.

Gutter 18

 

 

 

 

Skye High

The sun burns the back of my neck, but the sky looms sea blue and I take the hint. Grains of sand increasingly cake the cracks in my feet, and I hanker after the water.

It’s been a long day and it’s only noon. We set out early, and slowly marched North. The Highland mists sank murky to greet us, before clearing a path as we crossed the bridge to the Isle. Inwardly eager to get digging, outwardly tired, faces slumped against the minibus windows. Our view of vast lushness, the reward for all the rain, plays pretend. I’m promised tropical seas, that if I “didn’t know any better would have me convinced I were at the equator”. Or so I’ve been told.

Left, right, left, right, one after the other, steady and rhythmical, and ready for a rest. A cool saltiness crackles in the air, and the crest of the sand bank beckons.

When I read about the island as a child, I asked, much to my parents’ amusement, “What are the Brothers pointing to?” “No”, replied Mum, patiently, “the point belongs to the brother.” Leaving me to wonder what point the brother made or owned, at Rubha nam Brathairean.

The pool of water soaks and covers my toes, reaching a few inches deep. It doesn’t carry the coolness all around me quite yet, but it will.

It starts to rain, as soon as we dock. I fetch my mac out of my backpack. It sticks to my skin all plastic and yellow. The tide may turn yet though, the breeze is brisk, and shaded clouds move fast above me, as if they’re late for something too.

The tide has turned, it’s coming in, those few inches now chase my knees.

It’s not quite the quicksand of childhood scares, but still it’s unexpected when my booted foot sinks. The tide is only just receding, and the land it leaves behind is sopping. There’s a leak in my boot, too. The sea, rinsing and washing clean each day’s detritus, has its own secrets. Jagged rocks on the tidal platform shine black and glint, tricking my eye. Over there, by the edge, there’s what looks like a wide circle, with smaller dots around and ahead of it. Like carefully laid out settings for stones. Or, toes. And it’s not alone.

 

Eat Your Words

A new story inspired by this postsecret postcard. The message reads: “Whenever I finish a good book I eat the last page”.

Writing PostSecret

bookBy Eleanor Capaldi

It started as a test – if you could eat it, you were accepted, approved, like a pending loan application.

Small, crumpled and fairly flat, the scrunched up bit of paper sat in between my thumb and forefinger. The tips of my nails making a chipped polish frame. Stray indecipherable text rippled round it. Rotating my index finger, it lay there like a seed for an expectant bird. I scrunched my eyes up too, as if it were on a slide under a microscope and I was angling for a revelation. I popped my head forward and took it, fishing it up tongue first.

The anti-climax in the room was palpable. The entertainment to be had was in the goading, in seeing the concertinaed lips of nervous first years.

That first bite came from a stray corner of a magazine page, slightly glossy. One thing led to…

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