Sometimes life itself feels like a sitcom where you can only laugh in disbelieve at all the obscure things that seem to be our reality. Producer Aya Arden-Clarke, Actress and Director Charlotte Lowdell, and Screenwriter Laura Kirwan-Ashman of all female film collective Sorta Kinda Maybe Yeah had exactly that feeling when they first tried to get a break into the movie world – a place where male views seem to still be the norm and female problems are mostly used for a good punchline. Making these challenges their motivation, Aya, Char, and Laura decided to try get a foot in the door on their own: “We were just sick of the lack of good, diverse, and realistic female storytelling in mainstream media. So often it would be over the top, cringe and out of touch, or an obvious attempt to make a female version of an already successful male-centric show. Topics that are no big deal to us like female masturbation or periods or queer people would be dealt with like a taboo subject, like ‘Ooh, aren’t we being controversial!’ So we decided to just do it ourselves.”
And doing it themselves is exactly how they handled it, naming their first short film “Procrasturbation”, a movie filled with puns on female masturbation, and producing their own eponymous web-series with no budget whatsoever. “We think it’s important to be honest about the good and the bad sides of being young and female and trying to figure our lives out. We fully embrace the DIY aspect of our filmmaking; we made our series with massive restrictions on time and resources so we had to become very good at making the best of the little we had. As we were becoming a part of the amazing female-centric DIY scene that’s been happening in London, we were lucky enough to meet women in the industry who have opened the doors for us and we’re all doing our best to keep the doors open for other women and girls who want to get involved with us.”
With them finding their peers and using their voices, Sorta Kind Maybe Yeahs journey is just about to start – and they know exactly what they would want to change along the way. “We’re not afraid to make fun of ourselves and a lot of the series content comes from our own cringe experiences; we’re unembarrassed but embarrassing. We’d love to see the mainstream media channels give women the opportunity to tell their own stories and see more female show runners and writers, directors, or actors. There also definitely needs to be more people of colour and LGBTQ and non-binary people both behind and in front of the camera. We have loads of ideas for different kinds of projects. The web series is just the start.”
And to get to know the girls probably already making your next favorite movie a little better we decided to let them introduce each other – in true movie manner, of course.
Aya on Char
If her life would be a movie which would that be?
Titanic
Which film/tv character fits her best?
Cher Horowitz from Clueless.
What would be the soundtrack to her life?
Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson
What genre best describes her?
Drama
How would her dream movie/tv show look like?
Anything shot by Emmanuel Lubezki.
What should she get an award for?
Her one-woman show – The Charlotte Monologues
Laura on Aya
If her life would be a movie which would that be?
Juno. We have photos to prove it (Aya dressed up as her once and absolutely nailed it).
Which film/tv character fits her best?
Daria or April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation.
What would be the soundtrack to her life?
A mix between On the Six and This Is Me… and JLo by JLo.
What genre best describes her?
Black comedy/mockumentary.
How would her dream movie/tv show look like?
A buddy movie where Aya and Aubrey Plaza go on a road trip, get into all sorts of shenanigans where they scam people, and end up filthy rich at the expense of bastard men.
What should she get an award for?
Darkest Horse. A running theme with Aya is that she randomly comes out with facts about her past like, ‘Yeah, so back when I was a bouncer’, and Char and I are just like who even are you?!
Char on Laura
If her life would be a movie which would that be?
Appropriate Behaviour meets The Hunger Games.
Which film/tv character fits her best?
Ilana from Broad City and Hermione from Harry Potter.
What would be the soundtrack to her life?
Anything by The Boss (can be interpreted as Bruce or Beyoncé – both are accurate)… Or just magic fm.
What genre best describes her?
Dramedy (Drama-Comedy)
How would her dream movie/tv show look like?
Harry Potter’s Drag Race and she is Hermione. Ru Paul is one of the Magic teachers and Hermione wins the drag race by doing the Magic Mike Channing Tatum dance routine. And everyone cries and they make a golden statue in her image.
What should she get an award for?
Instagram Captions and her Selfie Gallery
Follow the girls on Instagram here and watch more of their movies here.
All Images via Sorta Kinda Maybe Yeah
By Trisha Balster
