At the heart of the film and production behind this year’s London Film Festival Audience Award winning feature documentary Holloway, from co-directors Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson, lies a non-negotiable ethos of co-creation and trauma-informed working practices which comes through in the film’s raw, authentic and emotive storytelling. Once Europe’s largest female prison, Holloway has recently been razed to the ground but before this imperious and sociologically significant London landmark was demolished, Compton and Hudson brought together a group of six brave, strong and inspiring women who all spent time behind the intuition’s bars, and created a circle of sisterhood, power and pain to share their lived experiences with each other and through Holloway, us as an audience. Alongside the stories these women share, often with great difficulty, Compton and Hudson take us through the tormented and decaying vestiges of a space which meant so many different things to every woman there and ask us to question the lack of effectiveness and compassion within our penal system through their measured and balanced collaborative approach. As they celebrate their world premiere festival win and continue on to share the documentary with audiences, the filmmaking duo spoke to DN about breaking down outdated hierarchical structures in filmmaking, finding the right balance between what they needed for the film while ensuring the comfort and respecting the boundaries of their contributors first and foremost, and crafting the narrative through various iterations to find the most effective structure for this mission driven project.
[The following interview is also available to watch at the end of this article.]
I want to start by saying how absorbed I was by Holloway which I caught at the LFF press screening. Please introduce yourselves and the film.
Sophie Compton: I’m Sophie Compton, one half of the director’s team of Holloway, which is a film about six women who had all been previously incarcerated in the biggest women’s prison in Europe in central London – Holloway Prison. We got access to the abandoned prison to facilitate six women to come back for a women’s circle and explore, come together in sisterhood and reclaim their narrative and the space. Come back with their own agency to a place where they’d previously been stripped of that alongside their identity. What then unfolds in the film, is an examination of the root causes of female incarceration and really begs the question, should so many women be in prison? Is that the right place? Women are often going to prison to find safety, to find sanctuary and we think that it’s such a shocking indictment of our societal structures. But, what also comes out is a lot of joy and laughter and sisterhood.
How did you two come to be working together?
Daisy-May Hudson: Sophie sent me an email about this beautiful project that she had in mind and I’ve always felt really passionate about prisons. I resonated with the story on so many levels especially because of my own lived experience of being homeless. I’ve found prisons to be this place in society where we don’t want to look, we don’t want to see or face the fact that we ultimately end up locking up people who are experiencing or recovering from extreme trauma with no space, no compassion, no safety. We just say, “You’re wrong, you’re bad, you need to change your ways”. It’s a system based on punishment and it clearly doesn’t work, just look at the reoffending rate. People come out so deeply affected with such a level of shame and guilt. It’s not a place that enables people to find a new path in a way that is held in love. So, when Soph approached me with this idea I immediately asked if she would be interested in co-directing. It just felt like the stars all aligned.
When unpacking the truth of co-creation, you can’t just say it, you actually have to mean it and you have to show up with that in mind for every aspect of production.
It has honestly been incredible to work together as a team. It’s a film about sisterhood made by sisterhood and that felt really powerful because documentary, or film in general, has this top down, hierarchical way of working. When you co-direct, suddenly that goes and it becomes horizontal. This is reflected in the way that we worked with our other incredible collaborators, like our editor, Stella Heath Keir and all the producers. We worked with all our team and the contributors in a co-creation model so everything about our way of working was how to bring this horizontal feeling and truth to working together. Not easy, but it’s been a dream. When unpacking the truth of co-creation, you can’t just say it, you actually have to mean it and you have to show up with that in mind for every aspect of production. Reconsider power dynamics and how transparent you’re being about the whole process. It forces you to adopt such a high level of self-reflection about everything. When you say something, do you actually mean it and if you don’t, then our beautiful contributors called us out on it and it made for a much better film because of that.
Talking about those co-creators, how did you go about finding the right women for the circle?
SC: They are such incredible human beings and I feel so privileged to have got to know them as we have. In a way, the group built itself. We spent a year from when we put the call out to when we were able to start shooting and in that time, we heard from over 30 women who were interested in participating. There was a huge number of people whose lives have been touched by Holloway, who’ve been in Holloway who wanted to go back. Through the process we realised a lot of those people, for obvious reasons, didn’t want to go back but it was really clear with each of those six women who you see in the film that there was a real bond of trust.
It was important to us that there was a range of ages, races and class backgrounds, but we also wanted to work with women who we felt were ready to take on such a huge challenge and such a difficult experience going back. We knew it would be confronting and potentially triggering, and we needed to work with people that we felt were able to go to those places and that it wouldn’t be too dangerous for them and that maybe, they had something to gain from the process as well. It happened very organically and it happened because we connected and built that trust with these six individuals and then it just became kind of inevitable and impossible not to support them to tell their story in the best way we could.
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I was so struck by your camera work. What set-ups did you have to make us feel like we were in that circle with them?
DMH: We had two camera operators which included our cinematographer. We had thought a lot about the logistics of the workshops, which were two blocks of two hours, and how to cover that. Because it’s so deeply about this circle of women and how they affect each other – it’s the glances between them, and it’s what is uncovered through the mirror of listening to each other’s story and what we can learn about ourselves. So we wanted to make sure we had as much coverage as possible, which I’m sure our editor wanted even more of!
We have had some people commenting on the power of seeing that relationship with the contributors changing through the actual way that they’re being filmed and knowing that something’s on their terms and not on ours.
Initially, we hadn’t discussed the film language with our contributors, where do they feel comfortable with the camera in the circle, at what distance? In most documentaries that just becomes a given, but when, halfway through the film, that is questioned and then the cameras take a step back the film language changes. Then we started to work with zoom lenses rather than being able to physically be in the circle with the women. We have had some people commenting on the power of seeing that relationship with the contributors changing through the actual way that they’re being filmed and knowing that something’s on their terms and not on ours.
Were you worried or did you struggle having to change your approach?
SC: In terms of the film language – no, because our contributors were and always have been the priority which is unusual, actually quite rare in a film and I think that’s one of the reasons why documentaries can be very extractive. There have been several points in the process, even towards the end of the edit where we had to be really open and if the contributors were not happy with this cut, or the film – it wouldn’t go out. We were willing to sacrifice the work that we’d put in and the investment that we’d received. We were not ready to persuade or push people into doing something that they didn’t want to do. However, having said that we’re proud and we do believe that the dynamic and the trust was strong enough that we were also able to express our needs as filmmakers. The one thing that we’d asked for was that the cameras stay within that workshop space as we knew that served the intentions of those six women because they’d all come in, not just to go through a personal internal process, but also to share stories for the benefit of others.
They all have these incredible, generous activist spirits and they want to be a beacon of hope for other women in a way they really wished that they could have experienced at that time when they were struggling. But, of course, in the moment when the process was being questioned and the veil is pulled from the film audience and you go behind the curtain, we realised there were things coming up which needed to be addressed. How can we be honest, accountable, truthful and also meet their needs? For me, there are so many interpretations of that moment and one of them that always has resonated with me, because I was standing in that circle at the time, was this feeling that we were going deeper than we expected and I needed to test the boundaries to make sure that we were safe to do so because the process was travelling into more intimate places than I anticipated. So even though we’d spent so long building those relationships and building trust and going through why they wanted to be there, that moment was the true test. In my experience, in that moment, the camera very much could have gone off, which was on the table, but in a film you have to edit a long conversation down to a much shorter one so in actuality it was an hour of us grappling with what we actually wanted and what we actually needed.
This film has been a lesson in surrender and rolling with the punches but that’s been such a beautiful lesson for us and it’s really challenged us as filmmakers to not be as attached.
We always knew that we wanted to be mobile, shoot dirty, be focused on character and story as the main priority and focus on the incredible, beautiful faces of our contributors so we already had the zoom lenses ready so it wasn’t too challenging to move out of the circle. The thing that was more challenging to our production process and how we shot the film was the fact that we shot it in the middle of the pandemic and lost like half of our crew due to people being pinged so the camera operators changed about four times over the course of the shoot. This film has been a lesson in surrender and rolling with the punches but that’s been such a beautiful lesson for us and it’s really challenged us as filmmakers to not be as attached. There’s a real energy of pushing and grasping and pulling that can sometimes occur in documentary production and we were not able to act like that because what we were holding was too valuable and our contributors deserved a lot better than that.
Your editor Stella Heath Keir also worked on The Taste of Mango which I adored. When we last spoke you mentioned that you watched through the 40 hours of rushes with Stella which must have been an intense experience.
DMH: It was intense but totally necessary. I tend to do that with other films and watch everything through because you need it in your bones. Especially as I’d just come from making a fiction so I’d forgotten what it was like to make a documentary and you literally create the whole thing all over again, you’re finding the story in the edit from the rushes. We had a natural linear narrative because it was filmed over five days in a workshop so we knew those broad brush strokes. But working with six contributors, a complete ensemble, meant we went through a stage where we tried to hang the film off certain women. We were curious what would happen if certain people took more of a forefront and it just didn’t work, it wasn’t what the women wanted, it wasn’t what the film wanted. The film wanted to be about six women and the circle of sisterhood.
We were curious what would happen if certain people took more of a forefront and it just didn’t work, it wasn’t what the women wanted, it wasn’t what the film wanted.
It was amazing watching all of those rushes and just responding to what bits feel so illuminating that you want everyone to see it. We were having deep soul awakenings when we were watching the rushes wanting our mums and sisters to see them and there’s some magic that happens even though you already know the women’s experiences. They’ve experienced incarceration, their stories are universal, a lot of people can resonate to different parts of their stories in different ways and when watching the rushes we wanted to work out how to collect all those universal moments. It was also super important for the women that we were giving as much context as possible to their stories. Generally, when we think about people who have been to prison it’s usually very reductive narratives or stereotypes and we wanted to give as much fullness and wholeness to what it means to be a woman. We couldn’t have made the film without Stella. It’s not been an easy journey to get it made and she was with us on the journey, not just as an editor for hire, she is a core team member, it’s her film too and she gave so much passion, compassion and understanding.
One of your core principles for the making of this film was working within a co-created model with your participants and trauma-informed production which we certainly need more of.
SC: We had to break any standard structure or hierarchy, for us the absolute core of trauma-informed work is giving choice and agency and that’s what true collaboration is. Also putting the needs of the contributors at the heart of it and not the needs of the film was a shared goal. Even now when we’re speaking to the press there are certain things that we’re not prepared to disclose or talk about because we don’t want to frame our contributors in a certain way. We’re aware of how the media can be stigmatising and very stereotyping when talking about women who’ve been in prison so we will always say we will not do this piece if it doesn’t align with our model.
In the edit process, what that meant was opening up the film at an early stage for feedback which was such an incredible, rewarding – sometimes hair-raising and terrifying process – that massively enriched the film. With documentary participants, they’re not only incredibly courageous in sharing their stories, they’re also the experts on the subject matter. Of course, as filmmakers, we can see things in terms of a character arc and there are things that we can see that perhaps you might not be able to see if you are the person in that story. There are ways that we want to craft the story because there are things that are important for us to communicate to an audience but fundamentally, the people that know this subject matter the best and know how deep they want to go on that gut level are the contributors. That’s where their insight was so central and we understood the feedback where perhaps the story was too much or not enough or didn’t make sense. There were of course one or two times where the feedback came back and we didn’t get it and we struggled in finding ways to accommodate it, but then we went into the film and we did what had been requested, watched it through and realised it was exactly what the film needed. It needed more joy, it needed more lightness, it needed a bit more sisterhood.
That whole process has been incredibly rewarding all the way through and we also provided trauma-informed practice training for all of our cast and crew which fed into the level of care and thought that went into how we constructed the shoot. Working with an all-female team and people that we really trusted were going to create a safe space and prioritise the needs of the women in the circle over the norms of documentary making where wanting to cut a shot that wasn’t working or fixing a light all became secondary. This meant we had to be really smart and clever as a team and plan everything in much more detail. There were a number of people who told us, “You can’t make a film about six contributors”. There were so many different layers of institutional thinking that we had to just ignore.
DMH: Trauma-informed working is acknowledging that everyone has a story which dictates their behaviour. The way that someone meets you at face value is a reference point of every other thing that they’ve ever experienced – all the pain and the suffering. So we should always read someone’s behaviour or the way that someone is experiencing something within that context. I’m not only talking about filmmaker to contributor but filmmaker to filmmaker, and to other members in your team. When you’re looking at things within that trauma-informed lens you can connect to people in a deeper, more vulnerable and honest way and it means that you can be accountable for your behaviours. How does the fact that there is this space created mean that I can self-reflect, that I can see that I may have reacted in a certain way and then have an honest conversation about that?
It sounds laborious and some people get a bit eye-rolly about emotions but we are human beings and this is the way that we are so we have to re-think how we’re engaging with our humanity and our messiness on set. This then trickles down to all behaviours on set which sees those cut out as there’s a level of self-reflection or accountability which is the way that things need to be. I worked on my previous films in the same way and once someone experiences what it means to feel held in safety then they want that from their next film set and their next film set and so people start to see that something else is possible.
SC: One of the best pieces of advice that we were given was that if you are expecting people to be incredibly vulnerable, then you have no right to pretend that you’re not also vulnerable. That doesn’t mean taking up too much space and talking about all of the things that you’re finding difficult in the world in the middle of an interview. This is a film which both of us resonate with on a lot of the subject matter in very personal, very different and acute ways which is part of the context behind why we decided to tell this story and why we felt so passionate about it. There were times where some of that came up and we felt emotional which, once again, was the beauty of having both of us because if one of us needed to take some time then the other one could take the baton which is part of holding the space, being truthful and expressing who you are.
Film directors are often considered or pretend to be all-seeing all-knowing like robots who aren’t human and that can create some abusive practices because you’re masking. That breaks trust with your contributors.
That’s part of the reason why keeping in that conversation around shall we keep the cameras on was so important because it’s that expression of vulnerability on the side of the filmmakers as well which, so often, is hidden or swept under the carpet. Film directors are often considered or pretend to be all-seeing all-knowing like robots who aren’t human and that can create some abusive practices because you’re masking. That breaks trust with your contributors so I think it’s also counterproductive from the point of getting a good film. It felt quite radical to me in terms of past professional experiences, being able to show up so fully as a human being as well as my role on the project.
It’s going to be challenging, in a brilliant way, for both of you moving forward because you know how important it is to keep working in this way and you know how successful it can be.
SC: That’s the beauty of having a truly independent production. Of course, you face challenges in regards to financing and you’re constantly wondering if you’re ever going to get paid but these ways of working need to be brought into the mainstream and all levels of the industry. To some extent they are but as directors, we are very privileged in the fact that we can help institute some of those norms and practices in the projects that we work on.
DMH: The film that I just worked on Lollipop was fully supported by the BBC to carry those practices. It just takes extra thinking, extra work, I’m sure extra money but I didn’t see that layer in the budget, but as Soph says it’s about your leadership and what values are you taking to where you work and what values do you want to see trickled across. If you hold that dear in your heart you will be supported but you have to acknowledge that it’s something that’s really important for you and non-negotiable.
We’re truly acknowledging those lived experiences and there’s a real recognition of its truth from people who have experienced any of the themes in the film, which is probably most women.
How did you find the reactions to the film when it played at LFF? It was your world premiere and you have since been awarded the Audience Award for Best Documentary!
SC: It’s been so beautiful, it’s been very emotional and there have been a lot of tears. We had an unbelievably raucous premiere with a lot of laughter. It felt very alive and that was really special as we had so many of the contributors there, bringing the energy. I think that for those who this film touches, which so far seems to be a lot, it touches them on a very deep level which is one of the things I am proudest of. We’re truly acknowledging those lived experiences and there’s a real recognition of its truth from people who have experienced any of the themes in the film, which is probably most women. With independent films there are always challenges because you need to keep working to get exposure, to get people to come down to pay attention but I have utmost faith that we will. We are already so proud of the way in which the word of mouth is spreading out and that grassroots energy is what we dreamed of.
DMH: I guess the depth that people are responding to the film is the thing that is particularly touching, like just how it makes people feel it touches something within themselves that maybe they’ve felt too scared to touch or that they’ve not had the space to touch. That this film can be a catalyst of something new or shifting within them feels very beautiful because that’s how change happens. When people are moved they really question whether this is the way things should be or is there something new and that’s definitely what we are feeling and calling for with this film.
