Barnardo’s Tenderly Spotlights Emotional Impacts of the Cost-of-Living Crisis

Barnardo’s Mollusc tenderly depicts the emotionally crushing day-to-day experience of a 10-year-old British girl living through the pervasive impacts of the cost-of-living crisis. Her sense of disconnection from her peers is captured using the visual metaphor of a giant red-pink sea-snail shell that cuts her off from the world around her. It’s only through the intervention of a specialist Barnardo’s support worker, offering her a safe space to open up and begin to reconnect, that she and her family start to see a way back to a hopeful future.

“We worked closely with frontline support workers at Barnardo’s Cost of Living Fund team” explained George McCallum, creative director. “This was to ensure the experiences the film depicts were both widely representative and emotionally authentic.”

Ada Rose, creative at Don’t Panic added, “The shell metaphor is a simple one but it captures so many complex and challenging experiences, and the more we worked with the frontline team at Barnardo’s the more resonant it became. It’s about dissociation, not being able to access resources, carrying shame, poor mental health and feeling you have to hide who you are. It’s so important that we recognise how all of these can be part of childrens’ and families’ experiences of poverty.”

The craft of the production was incredibly important. The shell itself was created for real as a 3D-printed physical prop by Millennium FX (past credits include Gladiator & Ex-Machina). The film was shot on 16mm and directed by the multi award winning directing duo DOM&NIC and produced by Outsider.

DOM&NIC, directors, had this to say about the job, “Working with Don’t Panic really was a great creative experience for us. We had a fantastic script and visual conceptual idea with the shell to begin with but Ada and George really encouraged and challenged us to develop the idea as much as possible, to arrive where we have now. We loved that creative challenge to find the story of this girl in her shell and capture what that might feel like. It couldn’t have happened without the commitment and skills of Kate and the team at Millennium.

We couldn’t be happier with the film and our biggest hope is that it can make a positive difference for Barnardo’s and for any child who might recognise themselves in the film and take some comfort from it. The cast were fabulous throughout the film particularly all the kids and Imogen who played the lead gave an exceptional performance in her first role on camera. We are eternally grateful to our brilliant crew and post production partners, who so generously gave their time and skills for this special project.”