DINNER WITH MUM

(short film)

A mum repeatedly attempts to have dinner with her daughter, but time quickly runs away from them both

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Dinner With Mum is a short film written & directed by Daniel Harding and released online in 2020. The film stars Meryl Griffiths as Mum and Lucy-Jane Quinlan as Ruby, as well as, Dorothea Jones, Sam Alan and Neil James. It features an original score by Peter Davison, and Make-up & Hair Design by Brittany Jamison-Lackey.

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SCREENINGS & AWARDS​

The Box Film Festival - winner 'Audience Choice Award'

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The Romford Film Festival - nominated 'Best Short', 'Best Director', 'Best Actress'

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Unrestricted View Film Festival - winner 'Best Editing', nominated 'Best Actress', 'Best Art Direction'

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Isolation Film Festival - winner 'Stage Left Award for Acting', winner 'The Story Arc Award' 

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CINECITY Brighton Film Festival

Ramsgate International Film & TV Festival

Wigan & Leigh Film Festival

Harrogate Film Festival

Dorset Indie Film Festival

Crystal Palace International Film festival

Winchester Film Festival

The Romford Film Festival

Unrestricted View Film Festival

The Hidden Film Festival

Hellfire Film Festival

The Box Film Festival

 Link International Film Festival

Isolation Film Festival

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To read the Dinner With Mum shooting script, click here. 

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SCRIPT

The idea for this film evolved from a short I originally produced whilst at University titled Stranger. I was never particularly happy with the original effort, and I frequently daydreamed about one day having another go at the concept. Almost eight years later, I felt ready to tackle the subject matter again.

Dinner With Mum was conceived and written in August 2018, and took one afternoon of solid writing and a quick glance over any spelling error corrections before I sent out the script for feedback. The initial response was promising, and the script excited me enough to think about producing it - I often write scripts that never see the light of day. 

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I knew Meryl from a previous project titled The Missing Hand, and felt she would be a natural choice for the role. Luckily she liked the script, and so did Lucy-Jane, who I had just worked with on S.A.M. I opted to fill the rest of the cast with actors I knew and had worked with before. 

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Admittedly, this project is a step down in size and budget in comparison to my last project. I had little choice but to shoot by myself, with help from Georgina as AD, as I couldn't afford to hire anyone else for the camera department. I knew make-up would play a huge role in this idea so that's where most of my budget went. I had worked with Brittany before, and she did an incredible job. 

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The edit took almost six months to complete because I was hired as an editor on a stop-frame animation titled Strike which took up all my time. Once that project was finished, I was eager to get Dinner With Mum finished ASAP. I met Peter (the composer) on Strike, and he was keen to build his credits and accepted the challenge of scoring our film. 

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