Could you just describe briefly what relationship your father had to food?

Yeah.

So yeah, my dad, um, was someone who, you know, very much struggled with food addiction for a lot of his adult life and I think for him, there, there was definitely a point in his life where he really retreated from the rest of the world and, and was kind of, um, isolated in the same way that the father is in the film.

There was a period in which, um, I was, I think early university, where it was just me and him in the house, and I so remember the, that feeling of, you know, um, wanting so badly to, to connect and help someone, but knowing that of course, that's their own journey and, and as, you know, the film explores, like you can't love someone into getting better, right? Um, and so yeah, that was, you know, a, an element that I wanted to retain in the film.

And in a way, like Hannah's journey is, is very much if you, if you read it on a surface level, yeah, it's a woman who's trying to lose weight, but actually the reason for losing the weight is like quite existential.

You know, like she, the character sees it as a way to be accepted and to be loved.

So yeah, I f- I f- I felt that it was important to really understand where those beliefs came from.

... ongoing from, from that initiative? W- where are we at in terms of the opportunities for women directors?

What was it like combining elements from your own experience into the story? And why were you specifically drawn to tell that story?

Yeah, it's always a challenge when you are bringing in some autobiographical elements.

I'd say having some distance from the events that are on screen, it's definitely important because it can be quite intense to kind of relive that on set.

But for me, yeah, as it's kind of hinted at in the film, I grew up with parents who had very, you know, opposing ideas about or approaches to how they dealt with their bodies and their relationship to food.

And so in the middle of that, I kind of had this very intense, extreme experience that I felt like it took me years to unpack so much of the inherited beliefs that were passed down to me.

So yeah, in a way it was, and kind of had the sense that I was always going to want to tell a story about this subject matter in some way.

And for me it was also, kind of wanting to make the film that I wanted to see when I was a teenager.

There's obviously the physical side to it, but there's also this emotional and psychological transformation that we see on screen.

Mm

...

it kind of, it really guides you in, in terms of the creative decisions that you're making to have that, um, lived experience, I suppose, and, and, and, and, and you're drawing on, on your life really.

Whereas, um, on the flip side [laughs] you also, you know, do have moments where the emotional intensity of it can be really incredibly, um, you know, it's just a lot.

And, and there were definitely-

Mm-hmm.

Um, and so the character of, I guess, Mona in particular, um, played by Natalie Press, uh, was particularly, um, I don't know, uh, just I think a whole thing I connected with, and this idea of trying to...

I think I would've been, like, 13 or 14 at the time.

It's just like... [laughs]

Yeah, yeah.

No, thank you.

Um, I think the...

Yeah, in terms of mirrors, um, I definitely probably just have, like, a preoccupation with identity and, and maybe, like, those stories where identity can come become quite porous in a way.

Um, and so f- in this, in the sense of, um, uh, Relic, you know, the idea that so, so many people can be like mirrors to ourselves, and I think you see that in Saccharin as well.

But in, in Relic, there's, I had this notion that the, it's almost like, yes, they're mother, daughter, grandmother, but at the same time, they could be almost three stages of woman in, you know, the same woman at the same time.

... with their storytelling because they put character first as opposed to putting plot first, and I, and I see you finding the v- happy medium of making sure the plot moves along, but you're investing very heavily in characters.