In 1990s Wales, a student returns home to her mother’s, only to unearth a family secret that will change their lives in Sofia Mavrou’s historical romance, “An Impossible Secret.”
Despite being roughly half of the global audience and the likes of Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion, and Chloe Zhao winning Academy Awards, women remain vastly under-represented behind the camera, making up only a small fraction of film directors. This gap and lack of female leadership can restrict the range of stories told and explored in cinema. This highlights a larger problem as women seeking directing roles struggle to find mentors or role models who share their experiences. Breaking down these barriers is crucial for a more inclusive and multifaceted film industry. First timer, Sofia Marvou, dips her toe in directorial waters with the 20-minute short film “An Impossible Secret”, an ambitious historical romance that straddles two timelines. Although the film isn’t wholly successful, Marvou deserves credit for attempting to create an old-school epic with very little budget.
Alyssia Dyke plays Cerys – a university student who returns back home to visit her mum Delyth (Lara Crawford) in 1995 Wales. Disenchanted with university, Cerys contemplates quitting, but while at home she learns a story about her grandma who, during World War II, owned and worked on a farm in Bangor. Delyth has discovered some pictures and a diary that describes a relationship her mother Megan had with an Italian prisoner of war named Giovanni, who became a farmhand.
With Delyth as a narrator, we are transported to 1943 where Megan (played by our director Sofia Marvou) meets Giovanni (Joseph Madders) for the first time. We then jump between timelines as Mother and Daughter share more of Megan’s story, which eventually leads to a realisation that changes everything the family thought they knew.
Towards its finale “An Impossible Secret” begins to lean more towards melodrama but, throughout the short, it’s the relationship between Megan and Giovanni that needs to be the most important aspect of the story and unfortunately, this doesn’t quite work. It is mainly a timing issue as the couple are just not given enough screen time to allow the relationship to blossom. The performances are fine but as a couple, Megan and Giovanni remain sweet instead of passionate. We need more furtive glances, flirting, and fire.
Robert Jee’s cinematography during the farm scenes gives us cold, detached gazes with long and medium shots capturing the isolation of the farm buildings, dwarfed by the vast rolling hills of the Welsh countryside. There is also a lack of warm lighting, which helps emphasize the bleakness of wartime and reinforces the characters’ sense of being lonely and out of place.
Overall, Mavrou’s vision is one that is searching for that old-fashioned epic similar to Atonement and The English Patient. You can also feel the influence of Shropshire novelist Mary Webb’s rural British dramas. While ambitious, “An Impossible Secret” doesn’t quite reach its full potential. However, credit goes to Mavrou for tackling a difficult narrative within a short format. Here’s hoping that more experience will allow her to fully explore the fascinating stories she wants to tell.
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