Filmmaker
Rebecca Parfitt is a writer of poetry, short stories, articles, and more recently, screenplays. Her debut poetry collection, The Days After, was published by Listen Softly London in 2017. Her work has been published widely including, The New Gothic Review. She was awarded a Literature Wales writer's bursary in 2020 to complete a collection of short stories. In 2020 she was commissioned by the BBC and FfilmCymruWales to make her first short film 'Feeding Grief to Animals' as part of the Ffolio emerging film maker project in Wales. This is Rebecca Parfitt's first film, screenplay and director credit.
She lives and works in the Llynfi Valley, south Wales, UK
contact: rebecca_parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Twitter: @editorrebecca
Instagram: rlhparfitt
About Feeding Grief to Animals:
A grieving woman comes to terms with the loss of her baby by welcoming wild animals into her garden.
In 2017 I suffered the devastating loss of my baby to miscarriage. There was very little support for me in the aftermath and I was dismissed by the hospital that was treating me with nothing but a leaflet and, 'It's just one of those things.' It shocked me and I was left navigating a dark place of grief and pain. This film is a close-to-the-bone exploration of my experience and recovery. It aims to deconstruct the taboo of silence and secrecy around miscarriage and create a space to begin a dialogue for those it has affected. It is also an exploration of the seeming 'gag' and 'gagging' surrounding women's bodies and their functions in society and within the media - a theme which is prevalent throughout my work.
Telling the story by way of shadow puppetry, as a form of live action animation, felt like the most authentic and organic way to explore this experience; allowing the viewer to witness the events inside the space of the sonogram - the puppets' strings and sticks, an umbilical representation of the baby and mother's connection, then loss of connection, in the womb.
Watch the film here: