When I Was A Younger
Rating: PG
Genre: Documentary, history, migration
Run Time: 8m 52s
Synopsis
When I Was A Younger is a short documentary that features four women who moved to London after WWII. They left parents, siblings and friends behind when they travelled from Grenada, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Manchester in the north of England.
Now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, these women are almost invisible to a modern society that can’t envisage them as anything but old. But as the film shows, they once were young, vibrant and full of fun. In fact, these four women still have the same mischievous streak they did when they were youngers.
Noella Mingo, Director
Cast & Crew
Noella Mingo, director, writer, producer; Damian Paul Daniel, producer, cinematography; Sheila Daniel, cast; Margaret Kelly, cast; Ada Woods, cast; Nages Amirthananthar, cast; Matt Robinson,editor; Danun Todd, original music.
Director's Statement
Having recently lost my mother to cancer, I realised there was much of her life I knew nothing about. I didn’t know what her youthful hopes and dreams were, how she socialised with friends as a teenager in the 1950s or even where she met my father. This inspired me to find out more about the young lives of women from her generation.
The Covid-19 pandemic gave the project a greater sense of urgency as we saw the world rapidly losing hundreds and thousands of its elders. Hearing their voices and listening to their stories seemed more important than ever. I am delighted to share these four wonderful women and their sense of joy and fun with the world.
Noella Mingo has worked in the creative industry for more than 20 years. As a stylist she’s worked on feature films, shorts, TV shows and commercials. She has written and directed the narrative short Forgotten and the documentary short When I Was A Younger.
She is in early production for two feature documentaries ‘Impact’ and ‘Fearless’ and pre-production of the narrative feature A Ghost Story In Penge. Noella also wrote the narrative short elephant.
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