AWARD WINNER TOO ROUGH
Young Lovers + Secret Lives
Love is complicated enough without adding family into things. In Sean Lìonadh’s Too Rough, Nick (Ruriadh Mollica) brings his boyfriend Charlie (Joshua Griffin) home after a night out. However, when the pair wake up in the morning, Nick must figure out how to sneak Charlie out of the house before his parents notice.
It’s something Lìonadh, the director and writer of the short film, has experience with.
“I once had to sneak a boyfriend out of the house in the morning,” he told Glasgow Short. “He only just made it out, because at the moment we ran downstairs, my step-dad was up a ladder. It’s hilarious to look back on now, but it felt like a kind of warfare at the time. I really loved the idea of setting a film in that kind of emotional space and exploring that intense division that can live between two kinds of love: sexual and familial.”
In an Q&A with Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, the filmmaker shared, “This film let me put so many of my own experiences into one small setting, an enclosed bedroom. I wanted to create a kind of warzone in a domestic space, as that’s what it feels like to grow up in a dysfunctional household.”
“The most interesting thing to me however, was the things we try to conceal from our lovers, because we feel like they can’t be loved,” Lìonadh continued. “Emotional warfare hardens you, and always has you looking over your shoulder. But when you can finally let love in, it’s the most beautiful, intense feeling. I’m always thinking about these things, so I didn’t have to prepare too much. I just wanted to tell the story as honestly as possible.”
Too Rough won several awards, including BAFTA Scotland’s Award for Best Short Film, London Short Film Festival’s Award for Best UK Short, and Edinburgh Short Film Festival’s Award for Best Scottish Short Film.
Watch it here, PROVOKRs.