Lucy Cohen’s Glasgow Film Festival world premiere Edge Of Summer is the fiction debut of both Cohen and production company Dorothy St Pictures after both established themselves in UK non-fiction filmmaking.
“Documentary is an amazing training ground for fiction. Observation of detail and authenticity are the most important things,” says Cohen.
Edge Of Summer unfurls in the early 1990s, and focuses on 11-year-old Evie, who arrives in Cornwall for a summer holiday with her mum, but finds the trip takes a different direction after she meets a local boy named Adam, with both children forced to face the complex world of adults.
“I’ve always been really interested in this specific time between childhood and adolescence,” says Cohen. ”In my documentary work, I’ve filmed quite a lot with kids at this age. It’s such a whirlwind of feeling. I wanted to create a story that honoured the complexity and beauty and pain of that time. It passes in an instance, and you’re changed.”
Cohen studied magazine journalism at London’s City University before moving into documentary filmmaking, working on TV docs for the BBC and Channel 4.
Her feature documentary debut, Kingdom Of Us, was cut from over 100 hours of home video combined with observational footage, following the journey of a family who lost their father to suicide. It won best documentary at the BFI London Film Festival and was Bifa and Bafta nominated in 2017, and released on Netflix.
Kingdom Of Us was produced by Screen Future Leader 2018 Julia Nottingham while working for Pulse Films. In 2018, she set up shop on her own, with London and New York-based outfit Dorothy St Pictures. The 16-person team has made a name for itself in the feature and series documentary space, with recent credits including Netflix documentaries The Greatest Night In Pop and Pamela: A Love Story.
“When I started Dorothy St, [head of scripted] Ariadne [Kotsaki] joined from day one, so we could try and make scripted projects,” says Nottingham. ”I’ve always been interested in storytellers across all genres.” Kotsaki had previously worked in development at Faliro House, Fox Searchlight and running Damian Jones’ development slate.
Development on Edge Of Summer began in 2018, with a meeting with BBC Film’s then-commissioning executive, now director, Eva Yates. “Julia sat in a coffee shop outside holding my baby while we had the meeting,” recalls Cohen. “Eva was hugely supportive from the outset.”
The five-week shoot took place in August 2022, in Pendeen and Falmouth in Cornwall – a place Cohen had occasionally holidayed as a child. For Cohen, the four-year development process was a positive. “I really love a long-gestating project. There’s no rush. Having that time, things fall into place.”
Amid the development years, the Covid pandemic showed up. Did it ever threaten to derail the project? “I did try and protect Lucy from that quite a bit,” says Nottingham, who produced alongside Kotsaki. “As producers, we always had 100% faith in the project and were really determined to do it. With Covid, it did feel like it was quite uncertain, but Covid also made us more determined than ever to make it.”
“I remember the moment the project was green-lit, I thought we had been green-lit for six months previous to that,” Cohen smiles.
The BFI came on board for a last round of development funding, and to support production, with the feature having a budget of around £2m. UK-France sales agent alief represents sales.
“Real life was happening while we made this film”
On top of Covid, there were other big life changes going on for Cohen and the producers. Cohen and Nottingham both had just had their first babies when the development process started, and then both had their second children ahead of production beginning, with Kotsaki also having a baby during post-production.
“We really had to work around that. Our first reccy, we took our kids and had them on our backs and fronts, trying to find the right location so Lucy could get inspiration to write the place authentically,” says Nottingham.
“When it came to the shoot, it was a tight budget, but they say it takes a village to raise a family, and on this film we used that village mentality with our families. Other people on the crew brought their own families. I’m really proud real life was really able to happen while we made the film,” reflects Nottingham.
Edge Of Summer stars Flora Hylton and Joel Sefton-Iongi, with casting director Shaheen Baig sifting through schools and open calls to find them. Further cast includes Kneecap and Belfast star Josie Walker, Lynn And Lucy’s Nichola Burley, Gavin And Stacey’s Steffan Rhodri and Bait’s Edward Rowe, with locals brought in as extras.
The cast, crew and their respective families decamped to a caravan park for the shoot, where they lived alongside holidaymakers.
“The young cast were there with their families. They had never been on a film set before. It helped to create a family within a family for them – we were all living in a caravan site together, with loads of other families. [We sang] Agadoo every Friday night,” grins Kotsaki.
Dorothy St now has further features in development with BFI, BBC Film and Film4 and Cohen has another fiction project in the works with Dorothy St that Nottingham describes as “radically different” from Edge Of Summer.
“Edge Of Summer isn’t a straight drama – there are elements of thriller, horror, fantasy, which are little echoes,” reflects Cohen. “This next project pushes that further.”
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