Director’s Blog – Lisa Charlotte Davis
These images show the title character of A is for Amy being supported by her best friend Frankie and then in conversation with college tutor Vanessa after Frankie has expressed his concerns about Amy in an email.
I wanted to share this from the Speak Up perspective as it’s useful for young people to be aware of the range of different ways in which they can support friends they are worried about.
In the story, Amy becomes increasingly isolated from her friends due to her boyfriend’s jealousy and control. She sometimes finds herself locked in the flat and sometimes is so down she can’t face going to college, even though she had previously been considered the star student on her course.
Thankfully she has really lush friends (this wasn’t an accident!!! – we really wanted to create a pro-social model of young people accessing help) who gradually realise that barely ever seeing her – and her increasingly erratic college attendance – could be signs that everything isn’t as rosy as her social media account seems to portray.
We see Frankie agonise over messaging Vanessa. He doesn’t want to betray Amy and is worried she will be cross with him. But he is really worried about her wellbeing and safety.
What was really important for us to show is that there are adults young people can talk to, who can make referrals to specialist support.
This is because when we were planning the project, we came across SafeLives data that showed that 25% of 13-17 year old girls experience intimate partner abuse whilst support service referrals are lower than the proportion affected, indicating that young people in toxic relationships are going under the radar.
In some situations, this kind of indirect approach to Speaking Up might be the safer option. Frankie had become concerned that Amy’s boyfriend Dean was monitoring her phone, so if he were to raise his worries directly with her, he could risk putting her in danger if Dean were to become angry that she had allowed someone else to realise what was going on.
We can’t wait to share the full film with you – hopefully for a screening in the new year… watch this space!
Image credit Carl Joyce
Photos featuring our fab actors Kaitlyn Maxfield and Jonny Larman
Absolutely fabulous script by Zoe Murtagh cocreated with young people
