Assumptions about domestic abuse, and who it affects, still exist. Popular culture incorrectly suggests that abuse is only physical, and happens to certain women.

However, abuse takes many, often non-physical, forms.

Refuge is a UK charity that supports women and their children to escape abuse.

However, Refuge’s awareness is lowering, due to cuts to 80% of its services since 2011.

Now more than ever, they need donations to continue their life-saving work.

Refuge has partnered with Picturehouse cinemas, to raise awareness of what life is like for a victim, and the positive change the charity makes to their lives - using the powerful medium of a national cinema campaign, which will run in all their cinemas across the country.

To compel donations, we leveraged cinematic tropes so audiences experienced first-hand what life is like living with domestic abuse. We immersed people with surround-sound, hearing, never seeing, several forms of abuse.

The key with regards to directing this film was authenticity. From every flinch to every gasp, it was important to feel that we believed what we were witnessing and could even relate to it - a familiar family environment, which then subverted as an uncomfortable element of danger was slowly introduced.

We needed the exchanges of domestic abuse, recorded on set, to feel convincing whilst also highlighting themes of non-physical abuse such as financial and technological control. To achieve this, the director steered the execution away from tonally being a typical 'charity ad'; instead feeling more filmic, real and considered.

Given the subject matter of abuse towards women, there was a sensitivity required at every stage of the process from casting, to the crew’s size and approach, to the direction of the cast, cinematography, editing, and sound. Even before the casting process, the director researched heavily into this complex issue.