An independent Sheffield filmmaker has told of her shock at being nominated for three awards.
Debbie Howard, who runs Big Buddha Films in Sheffield, wrote and directed her short movie ‘Safe’ which explores the harassment women face by men in public spaces and how they have to learn to keep themselves safe in this kind of situations.
Debbie said: ” Not a single woman I know hasn’t been harassed by a man in a public space at least once in her life”
“I wanted to look at how much these incidents affect us and force us to make choices we shouldn’t have to make, like getting taxi’s homes when we could easily walk if we weren’t anxious about it.”
She has suffered her own personal and frightening experiences that are shown in the short movie and every single one of her family and friends also had similar incidents of harassment in public spaces.
Safe, which is produced by Wellington Films was shot at a bus stop on Scotland Street featuring a mainly female crew.
The film premiered at three festivals in one week. Aesthetical Short Film Festival in York, Leeds Film Festival and Norwich Film Festival. The film won Best Director and Best Screenplay and also won Best Actor for James Nelson Joyce at Seville Film Festival in Spain.
Debbie said; “I was shocked and absolutely thrilled.”
Debbie said one of the biggest obstacles was the rain and had to spend a lot of their budget on a rain machine, as well as they were also filming on a public space where there was passing traffic and people.
Despite this obstacles she said the actors were fantastic.
Debbie hopes that her short film will be able to spark powerful conversations round harassment, raise awareness and hopefully change behaviours.
She hopes to release the film widely on line and show it in schools as well as in special screenings in collaboration with organisations such as Rape Crisis and Know The Line.
She’s also working on many other projects, with another short film called ‘Roach’ in development with many of the same team on Safe. She also has a feature film, ‘Cold’ in development with Wellington Films.