#99: Sophie Littman, Filmmaker

It’s been a weird week, with Omicron taking hold and trying to feel festive but also feeling quite apprehensive. So I hope you’re surviving, which has definitely been the overarching theme for 2021. And as always I hope this podcast brings a little bit of light into your week.

It’s an appropriate segue to introduce my guest - filmmaker Sophie Littman - whose short film Sudden Light was selected for competition at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival 2020 and was nominated for a BIFA that same year. Her latest short film Know the Grass screened at the BFI London Film Festival in October and was long listed for Best British Short at this year’s BIFAs. It’s also playing in competition at the upcoming London Short Film Festival and you can buy tickets for that right now at shortfilms.org.uk. 

Sophie has a background in Fine Art and graduated from the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, which is where she got her start making experimental video work. 

We chat about what that label ‘experimental’ means to her, how she honed her voice as a filmmaker and we go deep on creative process, as Sophie enlightens me on this idea of horizontal versus vertical work which I thought was brilliant. We also talk about getting an agent and being named a ScreenDaily Star of Tomorrow earlier this year. 

A quick housekeeping note - this was recorded over Zoom and occasionally it sounds like it - but I hope you enjoy our conversation regardless.

This is episode 99 of Best Girl Grip.