Fresh off the set of Star Wars: Starfighter, Daniel Ings (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Gentlemen) has joined Jessica Brown Findlay (Peaky Blinders, Downton Abbey) in Olivia Grant’s directorial debut, a short film called The Two Week Wait.
Fenella Woolgar (Call the Midwife), Rick Warden (Happy Valley), and Sophie Colquhoun (Captain America) co-star in the project, following a woman in her late thirties (Brown Findlay), who comes up against a series of dissociative experiences as she navigates her deteriorating mental health during the rollercoaster of IVF alongside her incompetent, albeit guileless, boyfriend (Ings).
The Two Week Wait, penned by Grant, is a co-production between her new production banner Cavalry Films and Symphony Films, headed up by actor-producers Rebecca Night (Wuthering Heights) and Harry Hadden-Paton (The Crown). The film is set to premiere on Tuesday at the Indy Shorts Film Festival.
Grant, best known for her acting roles in Stardust, Lark Rise to Candleford and Indian Summers, told The Hollywood Reporter that her desire to start making film came from a mixture of timing and a new sense of urgency. “I’ve wanted to make my own work for a while now and, like many actors, had a feature script I’d been quietly writing for a couple of years, but there was always enough acting work not to focus exclusively on writing, and I was ambivalent about what I would write about. It was COVID that changed that; firstly because it cleared time to focus on generating new work and, secondly, because it coincided with my personal struggles with IVF and its mental toll. As a way to hold on to my sanity, I ended up writing a 30,000-word diary documenting the rollercoaster of grappling with my infertility and transcribing the arguments my husband and I were having, which felt very specific to the process and uniquely gendered.”
She continued about her personal experience influencing the process: “It was only as the world opened up again, and I was able to reconnect with more women and couples, that it became clear that many elements of my mental anguish were remarkably universal. My shame around not being able to have a child and what that meant was normal; my partner’s difficulty salving that particular wound for me was perhaps predictable, and the intense sense of dissociation that permeated that period was again part of the experience for many. Like a lot of women, I did not share the experience with my close friends and family and suddenly felt there was a real need to shed some light on what can be the profound interpersonal effects of this remarkably successful, albeit oft-harrowing, process.”
The Two Week Wait is a proof of concept for a feature-length narrative Baby Mine, slated for 2027, she added. Ings and Brown Findlay are also attached, with Amy Hubbard on board as casting director.
Ings added: “Olivia is a singular new voice in British filmmaking, with a lot to say on some fairly universal themes affecting many women. Getting to work with her, Nanu Segal and Jessica Brown Findlay on this beautiful film was an embarrassment of creative riches. You haven’t heard the last of Olivia Grant.”
Night describes the script as “so instantly unique, compelling and beautiful.” She said: “[It] deals with the choices we make, the relationships we foster, and people seeking love and connection as they journey together through life’s struggles. Full of drama, yes, but so witty and heart-wrenching too.”
