About the Film

Filming theatre brings a particular set of challenges and rewards. When I was invited to make the promotional film for Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone, directed by Selma Dimitrijevic of Greyscale Theatre, I knew straight away this was not a typical theatre production.

Two Actors, One Kitchen

The play features two male actors performing the roles of the mother and daughter, word for word as written. The gender shift is not a gimmick, it is central to the experience. By removing the expected female bodies from the stage, Greyscale asks the audience to look past gender and focus instead on the raw emotional terrain of the parent and child relationship. It is deeply affecting, sometimes uncomfortable, and always thought-provoking.

Selma’s direction is minimalist and meticulous. The entire play unfolds in a kitchen, timeless, ordinary, familiar. Within that domestic setting, the larger shifts of adulthood, identity and emotional disconnection quietly play out.

Filming an Intimate Play

Filming theatre in a setting this pared back requires a particular sensitivity, catching the subtle gestures, pauses and glances that carry the emotional weight of the story. I wanted to honour the play’s intimacy and restraint, so the camerawork stayed subtle, close-ups held a little longer than felt comfortable, and the visual rhythm echoed the tension between the two characters rather than illustrating it directly.

The narration for the film was voiced by Selma herself, which added a layer of personal insight into her own directorial thinking. It felt important to let her voice guide the tone of the film, measured and intelligent, with a wry humour that sits just under the surface of the work itself.

Translating Theatre to Film

This kind of project sits right at the edge of documenting a performance and interpreting it. It is not really about visibility, it is about translation. How do you take the live, ephemeral electricity of theatre and shape it into a short film without losing what made it worth watching in the first place?

Theatre is inherently live, charged with breath, energy and the silence that passes between performers and audience. A camera changes that. It frames, filters and fixes something that was only ever meant to happen once. My job was not to recreate the stage experience but to distil its essence, emotionally and rhythmically, so that filming theatre here became less a record of the performance and more a companion piece, something that could open the work up to audiences who never sat in the room.

As with many of the arts commissions I take on, this project depended on trust. Greyscale gave me the space to interpret the themes visually, and I worked closely with Selma to make sure the finished film matched her intentions rather than my own reading of the play.

About Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone

Written and directed by Selma Dimitrijevic, Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone has been praised for its radical staging and emotional honesty. It strips back theatrical artifice and asks audiences to examine the personal mythologies they inherit, and the quiet heartbreaks they rarely put into words. Originally developed by Greyscale Theatre, the production has toured widely and been recognised for its innovation.

About Greyscale Theatre

Greyscale is a theatre company known for spare, emotionally direct work that often reworks familiar dynamics through unexpected staging choices. You can find out more about their work at greyscale.org.uk.