What to watch: Chuck Chuck Baby
Set in Wales, this is a film about chickens and falling in love.
Written and directed by Janis Pugh, Chuck Chuck Baby is a story about chickens and falling in love.
Set in Wales, the film stars Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey, Sorcha Cusack, Celyn Jones, and Emily Fairn.
What's it about?
Helen spends her nights packing chickens and her days caring for a dying mother-figure Gwen. Helen's world takes an unexpected turn with the return of Joanne. They were the objects of the other's unspoken teenage passions twenty years ago. One night, encouraged by Helen, Joanne starts a playful wooing game that re-awakens their youthful feelings.
As they fall in love and lust, Helen's zest for life returns but Joanne feels the walls closing in as she faces something much darker from her past. Helen's world is shattered when Gwen dies and Joanne's painful memories cause her to flee. Separated and alone, will both women reflect on their unfulfilled chance to break their barriers and allow love to win?
Behind-the-scenes
We caught up with Janis Pugh for a behind-the-scenes look at the film.
What was your inspiration for this story?
I was brought up by incredibly strong working class women. So I really wanted to platform their voices and celebrate female friendship and love in all its forms.
In terms of your creative process, was it always your intention to
tell a story with elements of magical realism, or did that sort of
evolve as you were figuring out how to convey your narrative?
Magical realism features in all my work. I love the power of realism in terms of audience investment, which comes from the story and the characters.
But I also love to decorate that realism with symbolic and non-naturalistic approaches in order to provoke something more than empathy in those seeing my films.
You've talked about how your work explores the beauty and brutality
of life - why is that important to you, that duality of the human
experience?
Because it's what I've experienced in its varied forms.
I believe an audience connects to that as they are universal, shared themes. How we struggle, how we love and relate to each other in beautiful and sometimes ugly ways.
No matter who we are, we will all experience the beauty of love and ultimately no one escapes the brutality of grief.
How did it feel to film the production in your home town? Did that
somehow add to the pressure of it all?
I've always shot my films in my home area of Flintshire - the landscape shaped my character and my creativity.
The only pressure I felt was my determination to pay tribute to the women - like my mum - from that area whose resilience knows no bounds.
What do you hope that people feel when watching Chuck Chuck Baby?
Love!
Chuck Chuck Baby is in UK cinemas 19th July
