Safie - A grad film

We are final-year filmmaking students at UWE, Bristol. Our goal is to create a film retelling the story of the character Safie from Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein.

What is the film about?

In modern rural England, Colette’s son, Felix, is visiting for the weekend to introduce to her his new partner Safie, a Brazilian woman. Safie desperately seeks approval from Colette while Felix is frustrated with Colette’s insistence that something or someone living in their barn. Meanwhile, a strange Creature, who is secretly living in Colette's barn, has been observing the family. Through the motions of a wonderfully awkward, complicated parent-meet-partner weekend, the Creature learns about love, family and friendship, something both Safie and The Creature desperately want and need.

Why does it need to be made?

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, written in 1818, is famously known as the first ever science fiction novel. There have been over fifty adaptations of this masterpiece which, unfortunately, are all unfaithful to the core feminist essence of the story. The adaptations focus purely on the narrative that Victor Frankenstein, a mad scientist, brings a monster to life and essentially attempts to play God and because of this, his experiment backfires. In the adaptations, The Monster is depicted as unintelligible and lumber-some and unlike Shelley’s complex characterisation of The Monster, he is doomed to unthinking criminality and isolation. However, Shelley’s novel is about challenging ‘masculine’ science. These films do not do the novel justice because they always remove a core character, Safie. Safie comes from a different culture and speaks a different language, she must learn English from scratch as well as the values and cultural norms of her hosts. Because of this, The Monster is able to learn alongside her and it is where he learns to appreciate family, love and friendship. If Safie’s character did not exist, then it is very unlikely that The Monster would have developed emotionally and intellectually. The main parallel between these two characters is they are both outsiders but Safie is accepted which gives The Monster hope that he can be too. Just like Mary Shelley’s understanding of ‘masculine science’ this inevitably comes down to ‘masculine filmmaking’ and we want to change this.

What will my money go towards?

Your money will help us to secure our beautiful locations, we desperately want to capture the rolling hills and romantic landscapes of rural England, promoting the South West. It will also go towards paying our actors fairly and making sure our costume and SFX for the Creature will be the best it can! It is also super important for us budding filmmakers to get our work out there and into festivals and of course that requires money. Any donations would be greatly appreciated, thank you!