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Interview: MJ Delaney

Recently celebrating the release of her first feature length film, Powder Room, MJ Delaney is a rising director to keep your eye on.

Since breaking into film making via a surprise YouTube hit in 2010, Delaney has made short featues for Vivienne Westwood, Comic Relief and The Observer, and won multiple awards for her advertising campaign for Aldi featuring a gin-swilling granny. I spoke toDelaney about her work, the position of women in the film industry and the future of British cinema.

Delaney’s big break into directing came when her video ‘Newport State of Mind’, a parody of Jay-Z’s ‘Empire State of Mind’ set in the Welsh town, became a YouTube sensation in 2010. “Social media is one of the many ways you can get into film making. I’m quite lucky that I’m part of a generation that has the ability to make better quality stuff at home and share so much on platforms such as YouTube. You can find an audience for your work and it opens up the playing field a bit.” 

Delaney has an eclectic range of cinematic influences: “Growing up I loved Bugsy Malone. Wes Anderson is one of my favourite film makers, as well as the Coen brothers. Pedro Almodóvar is an inspiration too. A real mix of stuff really.”

What other films is she currently raving about? “I haven’t seen Her yet, and that’s supposed to be amazing. I really liked American Hustle. And Gravity – the whole cinematicexperience was pretty incredible!”

Delaney graduated from Pembroke in 2007, but whilst at university, a career in filmmaking was far from her mind. “I didn’t pursue an interest in film making whilst at Oxford at all! I didn’t really know what I wanted to do while I was at university.

“I studied English and I did my final paper on art – kind of a sign that I wanted to move into the visual arts rather than towards literature so much. So I sort of fell into film making by accident. At the time it wasn’t something I imagined myself doing.”

With awards season in full swing, the issue of the under-representation of women in all awards categories apart from acting rears its head again. As a young female director on the rise, Delaney has plenty to say about women in film. “I don’t know why there are so few women behind the camera, I think it’s very sad. It’s a shame that you get a lot of press about women having a ‘moment’ in cinema, and you think, well women actually make up half of the world population.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s 2014 and you still get these comments. I think with my film, Powder Room, and TV shows like Girls, and then Bridesmaids as well, it opens up the conversation about women and comedy. Women can be funny. Despite the media focus on this ‘moment’ for women, it’s actually getting worse when you actually look at the number of women in film making.

“On a personal level, it’s a bit of a grumble for me. It means that if you are one of the few women working in the industry it makes you stand out – it makes you memorable but the culture behind it is annoying.”

MJ’s first feature length film, Powder Room, is a comedy drama which takes place largely in the ladies’ loo of a nightclub with a predominantly female cast. Was the idea of a story told frankly from the female perspective what mainly attracted her to the project?

“To be honest, it was just really funny! I read the script and I thought it was just hilarious and really well written. I got on really well with Rachel [Hirons], the writer, pretty quickly. I thought it was a very honest and well-written in the terms of the way the characters spoke and the experiences they had – it was very relatable.

“I also liked the celebration of female friendship, which is not something you see very often in cinema – I felt it was breaking new ground in that sense.”

The film’s cast features a host of young British acting talent, including Jaime Winstone and Sheridan Smith. As a young director just starting out in the industry, Delaney gives her perspective on the current state of British cinema.

“I think it has suffered a bit at the hands of the Film Council, especially in terms of the kind of films that are getting made. You look at some of the films made 10 years ago and you wonder whether, with the current state of the film industry, they would get made today. But there are always a lot of creative and enthusiastic young people coming through and I’m sure we’ll find new and
innovative ways to make these kinds of films on a smaller budget and to get them through to the actual distribution stage.

“It’s very hard to get distributed and take on the big, power-house Hollywood movies. They get all the cinema tickets sold, but then they also have all the funding in the first place. But when it comes to more diverse films where do you then go for funding for distribution?

“Both ends of the spectrum are so far apart now and the gap’s widening. But I do think it’s interesting what Netflix is doing with multi-national online releases, and also crowdsourcing. On demand cinema is also a cool way of offering a more diverse range of films. There has to be opportunities for innovation – or at least you would hope so.”

For those considering going into film making, Delaney has a few words of advice to offer: “Just work as much as you can. There a lot of facilities available now to enable you to do that, as long as you’re self-motivated and prepared to work independently. Keep putting your stuff out there and each film will get better.”

Powder Room is released on DVD from 31st March 2014

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