Olive Selected Credits. Starring Virginia Stride and Dave Buttle // Produced by Masha Egieva // DOP Arushi Chugh // Edited by Ian Robertson// Sound Design by Benet Serra // Music by Joseff Harris // Intimacy Coordinator Joana Nastari // Gaffer Maxence Ewers // Colour Graded by Martin Gaumond // Special thanks to Carlie Skan and Joan Samuel.

Festivals & Awards. Genera Films Post Production Fund Award // Women Over Fifty Film Festival // Kino Short Film Festival // Women X (nominated: best first time director) // City Nights Film Festival (nominated: best UK Short, Best Director) // Brighton Rocks international film festival (winner: women Rock award).

We are particularly interested in screening Olive in care homes for older people. Please get in touch if you would like to support a screening.

About the Process: Olive was developed through a close relationship and years of conversations with my grandmother Joan about sexuality in older age, intergenerational relationships and the experience of finding yourself newly disabled in later life. We shot the film using actors, entirely in Joan’s house.

Joan and I first made an experimental performance together in 2020. The work explored our conversations and attempts to connect virtually over different embodied experiences, with Joan guiding the audience through a body scan meditation, layered with descriptions of her sensations, memories and experience of dancing as self expression. You can watch it here.

On set we chose begin and end scenes with sections of improvisation, creating a lot of the natural moments of chemistry that we used in the final film.