Filmmaking and Fundamentalism: Louisa Connolly-Burnham's Sister Wives

13/12/2024

Emily Pearce interviews actress and filmmaker Louisa Connolly-Burnham on her newest short Sister Wives

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By Emily Pearce

I recently had the opportunity to interview Louisa Connolly-Burnham to discuss her newest short film Sister Wives. Sister Wives follows two women – Galilee and Kaidence – that are married to the same man and begin to develop feelings for each other. It is a thought-provoking and poignant work, one that nimbly navigates the horrors of religious fundamentalism and female subjugation all within the short space of 28 minutes. Connolly-Burnham is an actress who rose to prominence in the CBBC show Wolfblood and the Nickelodeon series House of Anubis; she has recently ventured into filmmaking, writing shorts and directing, so I was keen to talk with her about the choices she made and the influences she utilised when crafting this piece.

Do you mind providing a brief trajectory of your career for our readers who might be unfamiliar with your work and explain what prompted you to undertake filmmaking as well as acting?

Louisa: I’ve been an actress for about 20 years. I was in a couple of shows when I was younger– one of them was called Wolfblood on CBBC and the other one that a lot of people may know was called House of Anubis on Nickelodeon. I didn’t even have that channel though, so I didn’t catch a lot of it! About five years ago, I started to move more into filmmaking – or at least add that string to my bow as it were – because acting is incredibly difficult and very slow. You don’t have much autonomy about your path and so I started writing more of my own work. I’ve made five short films now, with the first one being The Call Centre (2019). The most recent one is Sister Wives and that is being developed into a feature film which will begin shooting next year.
The film fuses modern and regressive elements in its presentation of a fundamentalist Mormon society. What research did you do on Mormon culture and polygamy before crafting the film?

Louisa: I’m really fascinated by Mormons and just cults in general. I watch a lot of documentaries, listen to a lot of podcasts and read a lot of books about them. I think it’s a girl thing; we naturally seem to have a morbid fascination with that side of things. Also, I think living in the UK and being British we don’t have a huge amount of religious fundamentalism over here, which I think naturally gives us more of a curiosity about it. I saw a documentary on the ‘FLDS’ (The Fundamentalist Church of the Latter-Day Saints) on Netflix called Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey. It was a piece of brilliant documentary making and I found them so fascinating. They looked incredible, and lived as if they were from a different time like the 1800s or something. There were some dark inner workings happening; some of the men had up to 50 wives. I think the ‘ex-prophet’ or the ex-leader (who is now in prison) had about 86 wives. I just got curious as to whether these households– where there’s one man and fifty women– got lonely and whether these wives started turning to one another for comfort instead of competing for the attention of their husband.

Were you inspired by any particular pieces of queer and lesbian media during the writing process?

Louisa: For sure. Films that were big reference points were Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Ammonite and Disobedience. I’d already seen them all but I watched them all again the week before we filmed to really get myself into that sapphic world of cultural and religious pressures.

What prompted you to cast Mia Mckenna-Bruce, another CBBC star?

Louisa: I’ve known Mia for years since back in the day on CBBC. She was always in the forefront of my mind writing the character of Galilee. We weren’t on the same show on CBBC so I didn’t know a huge amount about her capabilities as an actress, but we did get cast on a TV show together a couple of years ago called Vampire Academy. We were living out in Spain for like eight months and although I wasn’t in many scenes with her on that, the ones that I saw her in were just fantastic. When we finished Vampire Academy, she got cast in How To Have Sex and when I saw that, I was just like “Oh my God!”. I always knew that she was talented but I saw this and thought ‘This girl is just breath-taking.’

I was in the process of writing Sister Wives at the time and she was just so clear in my mind for this role. She looks so young as well. We are a few years apart in age but I wanted Galilee to seem very young, but be played by a younger actress who could handle the themes and the very intimate moments. Michael, who played our husband, went to primary school with me so I knew them both, although Mia and Michael hadn’t met. Before we started filming, I had a day of rehearsals with Mia and Michael so they could meet as well.

Do you think them not meeting before helped fuel the tensions within the polygamous marriage you were trying to portray?

Louisa: I’ve never thought about that and that’s a really good question. It wasn’t intentional, but I do think it was one of those lucky alignments. Mia and Michael got on very well and I think they both felt very comfortable and very safe around each other. But there probably was that added layer since I had already had a relationship with Michael and she didn’t.

Although the film tells a relatively simplistic story, I noticed a lot of symbolism, particularly colour symbolism through clothing and hair styling, throughout. Was this intentional or was this just ‘English Lit student brain’ working in overdrive?

Louisa: We did loosely base the costume and hair around the community we were inspired by. They can’t wear the colour red in the ‘FLDS’ because they believe that when Jesus returns, he is going to float down on a cloud wearing a red cape. They are saving the colour red for the second coming of Christ, which I found fascinating. In regards to the pastel colours of the dresses– this is kind of gross actually– the FLDS women are encouraged to wear pastels to infantilise them, as these colours keep them more child-like and girly. We thought these dresses stood out really nicely against the drab, dull world that they live in. They are the colour; they are the life.

There’s some nice symbolism around the hair. I really enjoyed the fact that near the beginning of the film, Kaidence did Galilee’s hair up in that tight braid. Then, at the end of the film when they’re in the Mustang, it is Galilee’s job to undo Kaidence’s hair.

Do you have tips for young writers and aspiring filmmakers on breaking into the industry and allowing their creative voices to be heard?

Louisa: I always think start with shorts. You want to keep your short under 20 pages. A page of script tends to equate a minute in screen time, which is something to bear in mind. Once you’ve got your 10 to 20 pages of script that you feel comfortable with, I’d definitely recommend sharing it around. I always share all my scripts, particularly in the early phases. I believe in my writing but I miss stuff; some things don’t always make sense for other people even if they make sense in your own mind so I always try to include people in the formulation of early drafts. Then, you have to find your producer and that is really tricky. Unfortunately, there are way more writers and directors than there are producers. They are few and far between but once you find that producer that you connect with, they often end up becoming lifelong friends and partners.

The producer of the feature version of Sister Wives next year, Emily Everdee, was the producer of my first short film The Call Centre back in 2019 and so I feel this is a beautiful, full-circle moment. There are also wonderful film schools you could attend. The NFTS, Bournemouth Film School, and the Met Film School in London are all brilliant. There are lots of funding initiatives, anything between 2k and 10k, that are always worth submitting to. The BFI is an example but it is incredibly competitive; I, for one, have been rejected every time I’ve applied! If you find you are at a stalemate with writing, co-write with somebody, get your references, get your moodboard together, think of your dream cast. Also, keep going to the cinema!

Do you have any plans for future projects that you’d like to share with our readers?

Louisa: We’re shooting the feature version of Sister Wives next year. We are in the casting process for that right now and the financing process, which is not fun but we’ll get there! Alongside that, I have three more short films in development. One of them is my own script, which I’m really excited about, and it is called The Intimacy Coordinator. I’ve got two other shorts that I’m attached to. One is called Full Fat and one is called Scratching Post, and they are both queer films again.

Thank you so much to Louisa for taking the time to talk with me! Be sure to check out Sister Wives, which is currently streaming on Channel 4, and her other works when you get an opportunity.

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