Filmmaker Statement

When Christmas rolls round, the pressure of family perfection mounts. Problems are swept under the rug to be replaced with a sheen of happiness and celebration; children are sold the fantasy of Santa who, with comforting moral certainty, deems them naughty or nice. In When She Was Good, we explore the traumatic experience of a child discovering that adults lie and ignore the truth to maintain the fantasy of a picture-perfect family. It’s a film about the ugly, dark and unspeakable things that are suppressed in order to uphold the image of things appearing normal and happy; a kind of a tragic coming-of-age story about a child learning to hide her abuse to keep her mother’s illusion of the family intact. Santa is a strangely sexualised figure despite his proximity to children and his avuncular rendering of good and bad. This confused cultural messaging inspired us to explore an abuser's role in a child's life and the difficulty in naming and talking about this kind of violence.