One of my proudest and fondest memories of living in London was making short films and a web series with my friends.
I met Hannah and Lukas while working at Aesop in Duke of York Square. That was one of the best things about working for a company like Aesop: it seemed to attract a very particular kind of person. Thoughtful, artistic, slightly overqualified, quietly dramatic. The kind of people who could discuss choreography, cinema, heartbreak, mythology, fragrance notes and the state of their bank account all in the same breath.
Finding my people
Hannah was a fellow Australian and Lukas was Austrian, though he had spent a few years living in Australia, which meant the three of us shared a very specific sense of humour. Dry, self-deprecating, a little theatrical. We were all in London trying, in our own ways, to “make it”. I was chasing film, Lukas was pursuing dance, and Hannah was working towards musical theatre.
Instead, most days, we were folding towels, wiping down products, restocking shelves and laughing at the tragic irony of it all. We had each moved to this big, mythic city to make our dreams come true, only to find ourselves cleaning sinks and explaining the difference between hand wash and hand balm to wealthy strangers.
But somewhere inside that strange, exhausting, romantic period of our lives, we started making things.
We made a few short pieces together: some experimental dance films, little visual fragments, and eventually a web series that I wrote and directed, with Hannah and Lukas acting and performing in it. It was all very DIY. No budget, no industry backing, no grand plan. Just three friends with creative ambition, a shared sense of humour and the very sincere belief that maybe, if we made something strange enough, funny enough or heartfelt enough, something might happen.
Then Covid happened.
One by one, we all had to leave London. The project was never finished. We never ended up in the same city again to complete it, and the world we had been making it inside disappeared almost overnight.
For a long time, I felt devastated about that. Sad for our unfinished work, sad for the version of ourselves who had been so close to making something, sad for the lives we thought we were building before everything was interrupted.
But now, I mostly feel grateful.
We did complete one webisode, and I am so glad that it exists. It feels like a time capsule from one of the most fun, creative and free moments of my life. A tiny record of friendship, failure, ambition, absurdity and the strange magic of being young-ish in London, convinced that your real life is always just about to begin.
Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV …. could never.