DIRECTED BY SULIN HASSO | Written by JESSICA BALMER
produced by JOSEPH HOBBS & SULIN HASSO
After suffering a deep and painful heartbreak, a lost woman embarks on a ritualistic journey to rediscover herself.
ABOUT THE FILM
Venus Again was selected for the Lift-Off Global Sessions 2023, in the First-Time Filmmaker category where it went on to be voted top 10 out of 100 films, and it is a finalist in the European Cinematography Awards.
ABOUT THE FILMmaker
Sulin is a British Iraqi-Kurdish Actor/Writer and Director. As an Actor, Sulin has worked across theatre and tv. Her first narrative short film, which she wrote and starred in, The Yellow Wallpaper, premiered at Underwire Film Festival where she was nominated for Best Screenwriter. Venus Again is Sulin's first directorial piece.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH SULIN
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your filmmaking background?
My name is Sulin, I started off in this industry as an Actor, working in theatre and screen. Slowly I have been developing an itch to tell my own stories and I am making an effort to move into directing. My first short film that I wrote, The Yellow Wallpaper- which ended up being funded by Genera, got into Underwire Film Festival, where I was nominated for Best Screenwriter. Venus Again is my first ever directorial piece and I hope more opportunities to direct come my way!
Can you tell us about the genesis of Venus Again and how you came to be attached to the project?
So Venus Again, I guess started as a little bit of an experiment for myself. At this point, I had an inkling that I wanted to start directing, however I had no prior experience/knowledge on whether directing was something that I would enjoy or be good at. So I wanted to focus on doing a very short film, ideally a poetry piece, just to see (without putting immense pressure on myself) whether it would be something I would want to persue. I approached Jessica Balmer, who is a dear friend of mine and a brilliant poet and actor, and I essentially asked whether she would be willing to collaborate on turning one of her poems into a short film- thankfully she said yes, we then developed the script together- and the piece took off from there.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making of Venus Again and how did you overcome them?
The two main obstacles that stick out to me were location and the hero shot with the flowers. In regards to location, because most of the film takes place in a bath tub, we had real difficulty in finding locations where the bathroom was simply big enough for us to be able to do the shots that we wanted. I ended up spending hours on websites like Airbnb, just sifting through houses all over London, with a reasonable budget. Finally, we found this location, where the bathtub is actually in the very same bedroom, where Jess is sat at the mirror. This was ideal because the film was nearly completely contained in that single room- I am very grateful to the owners of the property who allowed us to film in their home. Secondly, for the shot where we reveal Jess in the bath tub covered in flowers, we planned on having the camera on a close up on Jess's eyes as she opens them and then for the camera to pull upward in a single shot to reveal her in the bath with flowers all over. In the end we couldn't execute this because of the lack of space in the room, to be able to centre the camera and then to be able to get the camera high enough to reveal the full bath. Luckily my DOP, Joseph Hobbs, came to recce the room and pointed this out to me from the start. So I went in with a Plan B, that if we couldn't get that shot. We would get a close up of her eyes opening and then jump cut to a wider frame of her surrounded by the flowers. Which ultimately was the route we had to go down.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences.
We wanted to keep the release of the film fairly simple- Jess and I discussed entering it into some film festivals, but we were careful about the festivals, as most do not allow your film to be online whilst it's doing the festival run. Our aim was never getting the film into festivals, but more getting the film out to an online audience. So we set up a plan of posting the film on Instagram, Vimeo and reaching out to online platforms to see if they would take the film on.
What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?
For me, the best advice I can give is to surround yourself with people who have more experience than you and are willing to collaborate with you. I think viewing short films as a collaborative process, elevated my own knowledge and understanding of what goes into making a film. Each film that you make needs to be a learning curve, so surround yourself with people who you can learn from and who can push you into being a better filmmaker.
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face trying to break into the industry?
The biggest challenge is accessibility and finances, which I think go hand in hand. There are not nearly enough opportunities for those who cannot afford to go to film school, or whom cannot finance their own films, to create shorts and develop their own voices and talents as filmmakers. Of the short film funds that are available, the competition is fierce and certain funds have specific genres and narrative styles that they favour over others. I have also noticed that a lot of courses and fellowships are within a specific age group, which is great- however alienates early career filmmakers who have chosen this path later on in life or who simply did not know that these existed, because the idea of being a filmmaker was never accessible in the first place.
What's next for you?
I have a short film that I have written and will be directing, called Dayke (which translates to Mum in Kurdish). I am currently in the long and very difficult process of finding funding for it- however I have a great team with me so hopefully we can get the ball rolling on this project soon!
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
There are two films that I love, the first- which has been a recent watch is Limbo; the performances, story and visual language of the film is exactly up my street and falls within the space of films that I would love to create. The second, is a beautiful film called Half-Moon by Bahman Ghobadi- no matter how many times I watch this film it always takes my breath away.