Writer | director | Grading
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Echoes explores the once intertwined lives of three young adults coming together months after the death of Lily – their best friend, girlfriend, and sister. As they come to grapple with just how far their lives have drifted apart, each one tries to find their own way of dealing with the grief and remembering Lily.
Raw and intimate, Echoes explores the complicated nature of loss, its effect on our relationships, and the solace found in shared memories.
Behind the story
Echoes started when I was spending one of my last days in Leipzig. I had only lived there for about a year, spending my time with my lifelong best friend, and forgetting to make friends of my own. So when she left for a six-week trip abroad, during which I would move out of the country, I spent my time hanging out with her partner and a friend of hers. As we sat in the summer evening heat, I was struck by the realization that the main thing we had in common was my best friend; that we each had a connection to her, but none to each other. I knew these people through my best friend’s eyes. Beyond that, we hadn’t bothered to build relationships of our own with each other, trusting our shared love for her was enough to connect us.
I haven’t had to go through the unimaginable pain of losing my best friend. We have an ocean and a time zone between us, but those are the biggest obstacles we have to currently deal with.
Writing echoes became more of a worst-case thought experiment for me, a strange love letter to my best friend, and an exploration of the different ways we can deal with loss and grief.
Lily’s best friend, big brother, and partner each carry a different version of her with them. And each of them has dealt with the loss of Lily differently. Grief is deeply personal, after all. But it’s also something shared between all three of them, a way for Lily to still bring them together.
Echoes was built from the brothers’ monologue at the very end, an anecdote from Lily’s childhood. I wanted the film to leave the audience hopeful, or at least able to make out a way for the characters to move on from here. Where the best friend feels haunted by all the memories of Lily at the beginning, she allows herself to find the joy in them at the end, in the brother’s story, in Lily’s photos – mundane moments made precious by the versions of Lily they contain.
Echoes was a way for me to go back to the basics of storytelling, crafting a film that feels raw and naturalistic. It’s simple because that is all it needs to be. This isn’t a new story, this is my way of exploring a range of losses of my own, and finding the common experiences in all that grief – a common thread I hope connects with other people, too.
With HANNAH MCLEOD and TOM MCMILLAN and THEO MANNOURIS as well as TALITHA WADE and CERYS PHILLIPS and IRIS STURM and SEB WATERS Written & Directed by FIONA KRUSCHNIK Produced by JASMIN BATLER and TOM KINNEAR a NORMAL GIRL PRODUCTION Director of Photography CASEY RAOS Camera Assistant CODIE REES Sound Recordist ALEX SYMANOWSKI Gaffer MADDY DODD Script Supervisor LISA VIEL-VIGNERON Art Department BONES ABBOTT Runner LISA FREW Editor ALEX SYMANOWSKI Grading & Graphics FIONA KRUSCHNIK Sound Editor & Designer SEB WATERS Composer ROBBIE DEVINE
