ICW: Adura Onashile, Writer and Director, for Girl

Back in October during London Film Festival, I got to sit down with the writer-director of the film Girl, Adura Onashile, to discuss the creative process of this film, girlhood, mother-daughter dynamics and so much more. The film is out today, and I am excited to share our chat about it with you! Read/Listen below, and scroll to the end for a look at the trailer.

Brianna (TBP)  
Congratulations on the film. It is gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's everything that I love in films, which is like, intimate human grounded, like, I just eat it up. It's so good. 

Adura 
Ah thank you. Thank you for saying that. That means a lot to me. Because, you know, films are like anything else, you know, they kind of like, some film’s speak to some audiences in a particular way. So it's really nice when Girls speaks to people because it is, you know, is its own thing.

Brianna (TBP)  
So I come from, like, a more theatre background. So if I can almost envision it happening on a stage? I’m there, I’m in. And I felt that with this. 

Adura
Yeah. Because I come from a theatre background as well.

Brianna (TBP)  
I mean, that comes across then.

Adura
Absolutely.

Brianna (TBP)  
So is that where you started? Did you start writing on stage? 

Adura
No, so I started as an actor, and then I did a bit of writing for stage. And then my producers, Rosie Crera, and Ciara Barry came to see my show that was at the Trav (the Traverse Theatre) at the Edinburgh Fringe. And they just wrote me an email saying, “We think you can write for film”. And I was like, ummm, no I can’t? Film is this thing that I've loved all my life, but it's not something that I've ever, ever, ever thought I could do. And they were like, Let's go on a journey. Let's just see. Let's just see. And I think them just putting that faith in me, but also just being like, let's experiment was just the beginning of another journey. And I just knew that this was a story I wanted to tell. Because it's something I haven't seen a lot. 

Brianna (TBP)  
Yeah it's very true. So I want to talk about girlhood and what it means to you and why that's the story you wanted to tell. Because like you said, we don't really get to see, you don't get to see stories where it's about girls growing and single parents, the bond between a mother and a daughter. So why was this a story that you wanted to tell?

Adura
I think for me, I find the transition from girlhood to womanhood, whenever it happens, I find it quite an epic thing. I think it happens on a visceral sort of physiological level. But it also happens on an emotional and mental level as well. And it's something I see a lot of, and obviously, the film is called Girl, because it's about the girlhood of both the mother and the daughter, I think it's coming of age for Grace and Ama. And I just wanted that story to be writ large and to be told on an epic scale, you know, that intimacy to be told on an epic scale. And I think I hadn't seen something like that before, and it felt really important to me. I’m an only child of a single parent, and the lines were often blurred whether my mum was my best friend, or my sister, or my mother. And that means that our relationship had lots of different facets, some of them really contradictory. And so I wanted to push that in filmic terms and in the story terms. So my mum was a midwife but Grace is a cleaner, and my mum didn't suffer sexual assault, but Grace does. So I pushed sort of like the dramatic parameters with this but the essence of exploring this complicated, intimate relationship was there. 

Brianna (TBP)  
As I’ve said, I think this film is really really well done. And that is of course your writing and your directing, but it's also the talent of those two actresses (Déborah Lukumuena and Le’Shantay Bonsu). How involved were you with the casting process? 

Adura
Oh I was involved with it. I was very involved with it. But I also had the most phenomenal casting director, Isabella Odoffin. And I tell you, we had been looking for actors in the UK. And she's the one that said why don't we look further afield? She's an immigrant, so she could be from Africa, she could be an African-based actor. She could be a European-based actor. So that's how we started looking in France and Belgium and in South Africa as well. And we came across Déborah, and straight away from the time she gave her first tape in, I was just like, “Who is this person?” In her silence there was just so much, it was like there was just the depth of emotion to everything she did just the look, to the hunch of a shoulder, everything. She was phenomenal. And then Le’Shantay as well had never really done any acting before. She sent the tape in and I was like, “Who is this person? Who is that?” Like just, she didn't have to say anything and you were like, “I want to know, I can feel what you're thinking.” There's so much kind of like, I don't know, melancholy and not not sorrow because there's an innocence there. But it's so wide-ranging and expansive in Le’Shantay, and that's just gold to the frame and to the camera. So, yeah, those two it was just, it was just a God send. And then I insisted on a three-week rehearsal process before the shoot began. 

Brianna (TBP)
That’s pretty rare in film.

Adura
Yeah, yeah, I insisted on that, because I knew from a theatre background, you start with actors being like, “Oh, we don't know each other”, three weeks later they’re like “we’re family, we’re friends, we’re in each other's everything” you know. And it was important that they had a rapport that felt like they had been together for a very, very long time. And they both were able to do that. And honestly, they make the film. And the thing about Déborah as well, is that she was a sister through the process, like for me. Because she was like, I'm doing this because of you, I’ve got your back. And for your lead actor to have that faith and trust in you meant the world to me. And I just hope she gets all the plaudits in the world for that performance, because it's so nuanced. It's so beautiful. It's so heartbreaking. And she's a real special one, and so is Le’Shantay. 

Brianna (TBP)  
What were the challenges for you in creating this? And how do you think it developed you as a filmmaker? 

Adura
So I think one of the things that I'm definitely going to - I think I was quite isolated making this film. And I think that I would have loved like somebody who was out of the process, but who knew film that I could just go, “Hey, this thing is happening. We're shooting, it’s COVID, we’ve just had a shut down. What do we do?” You know, like, not what do we do, but how do I maintain momentum? Yeah, moments like that. And I think that kind of mentoring and having somebody who's got your back would be something that I do. Another thing is, I think there's been this real push to have filmmakers who come from different backgrounds. And that's really, really brilliant. But film and theatre are very different. And although I've done a few courses, nothing had quite prepared me for how different working under such a tight schedule is. And I think maybe if I was giving any advice, it's just to talk to people, talk to other filmmakers, find out what the process is, don't go in blindsided. And then just surround yourself with phenomenal artists who elevate everything you do, and you'll be fine. Filmmaking is very much a collaboration. I mean, it's like you always get the writer-director, the writer-director but it’s absolutely a collaboration. Yes, it starts with your vision. But whether that comes to life or not, depends on who else you have around you. And so people like my cinematographer, like my impossibly talented production designer Soraya Gilianni, like the composer Ré Olunuga. I mean, the soundtrack is probably one of the things I'm proudest of. Because like it was, I had this mad lightbulb moment - which is why I say it's amazing to surround yourself with people - in my head film was always 80% Picture 20% sound. And he just said to me, no, it's 50/50. IE, if you took visuals away, somehow you should still get the feeling of the film.

Brianna (TBP)  
Well, if you think like when you listen to say the Jaws soundtrack. You've got it. Or Jurassic Park, you’ve got it. It’s so true.

Adura
Yeah! So then it becomes how do I - if it's 50%? How do I mess things up? How do I contradict picture with - how do I lay a picture with sound? How do they swap over and with a character like Grace that’s so closed in, then women's voices become even more important because they're the story. They're like, the temperature of her emotions, guiding us through what she's going through. And so things like that were phenomenal to kind of explore. But that felt very theatre to me as well like using women's voices, like in a kind of Greek Choral-y way. So these women are sort of helping us understand Grace. They're also kind of telling us about the past, but also they're guiding her towards a future of redemption and release. And all those things are important when we were putting the soundtrack together. 

Brianna (TBP)  
So how early on in the visual creative process did you start talking with your composer about sound?

Adura
Very early on, because I had worked with Ré and I'm good friends with Ré. I've worked with during my short film Expensive Shit, he’d done the sound for it. And I had said to him, “Listen, I've got this feature film. I just want you to read the script and tell me how you how you would approach it,” You know, let's just have a conversation about the sound. So even before we've been greenlit, okay, Ré read the script. And he was like, “Wow, this is like, there's something in here. What are we going to do?” We talked about it and then we were like, it's got to be black women's voices, then we were like, what else? And he said, I'm so sick and tired of urban characters not being given the orchestral treatment. So boom, we know the piano and strings are in. So already we had started to put things together. And one thing that he's very kind of cognisant of, is that the audience knows. You don't have to tell them they know, they know. And the thing about voices is that it is so emotive, that they're their own storyteller already. And he sort of really understood that that was going to happen if we used women's voices. And that's exactly what it feels like.

Brianna (TBP)  
What draws you to a story? Like if you are out and you see something, what is it that kind of sparks a little bit of inspiration here that goes, I could tell a story with this.

Adura
Feeling. It starts with a feeling. And the feeling is often a complicated one. Like, “Oh, that feels weird. Don’t know about that. Oh, that feels contradictory.” And so I wanted to capture how the kind of heartbeat, or how trauma and beauty can sit next to each other. You know, that's all I wanted to do. I was like, how do I, how do they fit.

Brianna (TBP)
Because they do feel like they’re two sides of the same coin almost. 

Adura
Yes, yes. Exactly. Exactly. And I want to create something that sits in both. I want to make this thing that is so beautiful you can't take your eyes away, even though it's talking about the worst parts of human - sort of what can happen to a human being. And I think that conflict, and I think that contradictory-ness makes sense to me, the world has always felt very contradictory to me. And so all my art is about that. How many truths can sit side by side is probably my obsession, really.

Brianna (TBP)  
As you said it I was like, that's life. Trauma and beauty. Life is what's in the middle of that.

Adura
Absolutely. Absolutely, and so it becomes mad to me that we see all these films about traumatic situations and they’re like, grey.

Brianna (TBP)  
Because life isn't grey. And that's what I really loved about this actually, it is visually stunning. Your cinematographer - the colour scheme, and the grading in this is gorgeous. 

Adura
It was important to me from the beginning, I had to do this thing called a mood board, where you basically as a director, you put your vision together, visually. And it's what you kind of like - when you say to people, would you like to come and audition for my film, you give it to them, and they're supposed to come up with their sort of response, either as a cinematographer, or as a production designer, or as a costume designer, or as a makeup artist to your visual palette. And my visual palette had a lot of depth and colour, it was just really apparent to me that was absolutely important. Because of people like Barry Jenkins, and I love what he does with Moonlight, love what he'd done with the Underground Railroad. I don't know if you've seen it. There are no words. Some of that stuff I've never seen in cinema, let alone on TV. The vision of that? Oh my God. So he was a big influence. Steve McQueen was a big influence. Because what he does, I mean, obviously, a lot of his stuff is very plot-driven now, but like his background is in visual art and some of his visual art stuff, there's no doubt it's been a big influence on this. I'm not saying this is a filmic essay, but it's definitely a meditative film. And the space that it has, I can imagine some of those frames and a gallery as opposed to in a cinema. And so he felt like a real influence. Then Mati Diop and a film called Atlantiques that she did a couple of years ago. And again, it felt like just brown skin and what happens with brown skin felt really important. So all those influences were there from the beginning. What Tasha Back did though was bring light. Oh my god, what that woman - she's a magician with light…And I should know because it took so long.

Both
(laugh)

Brianna (TBP)  
But you can't rush perfection!

Adura
No you can’t! So the visual, yeah, how she lit scenes was absolutely phenomenal. 

Brianna (TBP)  
Was it a predominantly female crew and cast? 

Adura
Yeah. 

Brianna (TBP)
I love that. Was that intentional? 

Adura
Yeah, yes. And we had an intimate intimacy coordinator, and the real desire was to create a safe set and a safe way - you know, if you're telling an intimate story like this, and you're asking actors to bear their souls in silence in this way, you want to create an environment where they feel safe.

Brianna (TBP)  
So to wrap it up, so I'm gonna go to my last question. What does being black mean to you?

Adura
Oh, my God. It's what elevates me as a human being. It's expansive. It's ancestral. It's beautiful. It's funny. Being Black is funny. Yeah. It's like, but it's also the ability to be shapeshifters, to live in more than one state at once. And I think that's a godsend to our creativity as human beings - just in our lives no matter what we do. I think it's a real godsend and I love that.

Girl is in cinemas from today, November 24th. Watch the trailer below.