How do you know who to trust when you don’t even know you’re being manipulated?
That Girl is a short drama about the dangers of trusting too easily online. It was my first film, made under Covid conditions for my degree. That meant we couldn’t shoot in person. It was a trial by fire, made better and worse by the constraints imposed by shooting from a distance.
Finding an actress for the lead role was difficult. The character was originally written to be from Liverpool, and although I set up meetings with five or six suitable actors, they fell through each and every time. People put in the effort to audition, then dropped contact when they had the role. One was partly through recording when she quit. I guess lockdown made people try new things. Good for them, bad for me.
That’s when Aneta auditioned.
Aneta makes this film. She’s excellent. She understood the emotional complexity behind the character. She also did all the work of shooting the footage herself – Covid conditions, remember? – and she delivered on that too.
The end result is That Girl – a film that would be different if I shot it today. It’d have tighter dialogue, be shot in person across multiple locations, and have a different ending. But then it wouldn’t be this film.
That Girl was a quarter-finalist in the National Short Film Festival and got an honorary mention at the Student World Impact Festival. It appeared in a couple of other places too, including a stronger-than-expected performance in the Lift-Off Filmmaker Sessions. The world went back to normal – fortunately – and That Girl dated, and quickly. But it was a unique, enjoyable experience – a time capsule of the pandemic.
CAST
Aneta Robak – Girl
Mat Growcott – Reporter
CREW
Written and Directed by Mat Growcott