Rona Munro - Writer’s Statement (CV)

“The script for almost adult was developed after a series of meetings and workshops with unaccompanied refugee kids, teachers, workers and others who care for them.

We then held a series of auditions in London and Birmingham to find the two girls to play Shiku and Mamie.We were quite literally spoiled for choice, we saw so many amazing young women some here with family, others, like our characters, making their way in the UK on their own. They all contributed so much to our final film just in what they offered on our workshop days and we could have built an amazing story out of any one of them.

I first met Victoire at an open audition in Birmingham. She seemed painfully shy and nervous, very quiet; her hand when I shook it was freezing cold and shaking with nerves. Her English was shaky, (she’s fluent in French and Lingala) but by the next audition I saw a young woman who could improvise a whole range of emotion. She was accessing very real pain and vulnerability but offering it up with no fear in a way many trained actors would struggle to achieve.

By the end of the shoot I was working with a charismatic, confident youngwoman with a huge laugh, dealing with split new experiences every day with an aplomb that took my breath away. And her English improved at what seemed to be a supersonic rate. My French stayed as halting as it always was and I didn’t pick up much Lingala.

All the young people I met were dealing with histories and lives most British teenagers could only imagine. Yet they were acquiring academic qualifications at a rate of knots and most of them were really excited and motivated to find out what they could achieve in their new home.

Like Victoire they have so much to offer.

I think she and Ann are both stars.”