"Autumn Showers" by Alexandra Hogg

NNT Autumn Online Season.

Sofia has left home to go to Uni, and it's a world of discovery. Fitting in to life away from home with new friends, a new way of life but also personal discovery, or to be more conclusive, personal affirmation. It shows the conversations between a mother and a daughter at different stages of the growing process.

There is a lovely retrospective section where Sofia, the daughter, looks back at a particular situation just before she goes out to a party, and recognises the concern and love from Katherine, the mother, which at that time was lost on her daughter. Something that all of us parents can recognise and can only hope that their children grow to acknowledge.

This short film, just a smidgen over 21 minutes long, is really quite beautiful because it does reveal several issues and highlights areas of a mother/daughter relationship with the trust that is invested within.

It shows the expectations from peers, which can often be so out dated, and the pressure that is put upon the youth. It shows the weight that a young person carries around when they anticipate revelations to a parent, revelations that can be life changing but in the wide scheme of things, not that important, or not that important that warrants the weight that can be envisaged by the bearer.

This is a beautiful film and a really lovely story by Alexandra Hogg. Now I don't know Alexandra so I do not know if this is a work of fiction or she has written this from personal experience, but either way, this is a story that has a lot of heart invested in it.

I loved the descriptive passage where Sofia describes herself as "living in a grey area". Watching this film you can really understand where she is coming from, and a description that could describe several areas of most people's lives, throughout life.

The maturity of the script and the way the script has been written, for me belies the youth of the author.

The camera work is also beautifully done with the external shots really capturing the beauty of Autumn.

The music compliments the mood throughout. It is melancholy but soothing and also very beautiful, even in the scenes where you would not expect the soothing soundtrack to fit in , like the slow motion clubbing scenes. Everything fits perfectly.

The ending fades out and again provides another call for help, something that is repeated throughout, and with this ending it left me wanting more. More because I wanted to know what Sofia wanted to discuss with Katherine, and more because Sofia is someone you want to know, and know more about, and care about..

The actors portraying the roles were Katie Booth (Sofia 1),

Lily Bailes

(Sofia 2) and

Megan Peace

(Katherine). Needless to say with my comments above, this trio were very well cast.

The crew are as follows

Director and writer - Alexandra Hogg

Producer -

Charlie Basley

Assistant Producer -

Lottie wright

Shadow Producer -

Anna Schooling

Shadow Director / Video Editor -

Lauren Brady

Video Editor -

Alicia Conte

Sound Designer / Video Editor - Charlie Finney

Captioner -

Emma Barber

Creative Assistants -

Beth White

and Giulia Duggan

Publicity Assistant -

Laura Sherratt

Poster Designer - Anya (Ace) Edwards.

This is an online event that you can access via the Nottingham New Theatre Youtube channel at 7.30 pm tonight https://www.youtube.com/cha.../UCq6zOPIOcfIK6fxtxILeffwhttps: