Filmmaker Statement

Abdou Cissé, a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker from South London, was originally invited to capture the project behind the books. But as someone who grew up on an estate and lives with dyslexia, the project hit closer to home than expected. “This one felt urgent and more important than all the big TV shows I’ve worked on,” says Cissé. “I have moved away from my estate, but making this film made me realise how much I missed having a community, how much I had taken it for granted. I started asking myself, when did I stop looking to my estate for inspiration? Why did I start neglecting it whilst the world uses it to sell back the very culture that they stigmatised me for?...So I wanted to make a film that shattered every expectation of what an estate is. To reclaim the artistic hotbed our homes really are. Like Chalkhill and St Raph’s, my estate is full of uncelebrated brilliance, wonder, talent, and history, but it is too often reduced to headlines. This film is a love letter to those peopl