Georgia Oakley: “I Know Who I Am and What I Want to Say”
Above: Georgia Oakley, Photographer: Omar Guirindola
Represented by Eleanor UK, Georgia Oakley is a writer/director, formerly a BFI Flare x BAFTA mentee, who was nominated for a BAFTA in 2023 for her breakthrough feature ‘Blue Jean’ (2022).
Georgia has well established herself as one of the frontrunners of the new queer British cinema and has recently announced her planned venture into the commercial space. Today, we will look back on her career before ‘Blue Jean’ was selected for BAFTA’s Breakthrough programme, and on the inspiring development of her creative voice.
Above: Still from 'Blue Jean'
During her teenage years, Georgia had a chance encounter on a film set and tells me she was immediately “struck by the attention to detail, craft and artistry” that she witnessed. It was what sparked the fire that would later lead to her accomplishments in film and TV. On her dwindling path towards them, though, she shares that she did have a brief stint directing theatre – an experience that further confirmed her love for film.
About her theatre days she says: “Even then, I always craved the camera and its ability to communicate intimacy. To provide a window into a character’s soul.”
In the industry, Georgia’s first job was unsurprising – driving vans for a commercials company. Two years later she had risen through the ranks and been crowned in-house creative. On the side, she was restlessly writing and directing her own shorts, and sending them to festivals.
The hustle inevitably bore fruits – one of her shorts premiered at New York Film Festival in 2013, which led to Georgia being signed as a fiction director shortly after.
This means that Georgia has accumulated approximately 10 years of writing and making shorts, but she says that she feels like it’s only the start. “I know who I am and what I want to say,” she assures me.
“The challenge is that life can be a lot less complicated when you’re 25 to when you’re 35. I have much less time now and have to drown out a lot more outside noise to get my ideas down on paper. But that’s just discipline, and I’m learning to navigate it. I feel very lucky to have more opportunities at this point in my career than ever before.”
Time might have become a scarcity, but inspiration has remained consistent. Most of Georgia’s influences have always been – and still often are – drawn from French and Latin American cinema, ‘La Cienega’ and ‘Water Lilies’ being two early inspirations.
“When I first started working, I used to walk past this great DVD store,” Georgia says. “Most days, I would pick up a film on the way home from work and return it the following day. The films were categorised by director; it was incredible. I remember obsessively rewatching films like ‘Rust and Bone’, ‘Blue Valentine’, ‘Safe’, ‘Three Colours Blue’ and ‘Paris Texas’.”
What drew her to these films then, and what still attracts her today, is the humanity woven into their stories. To her, these films find space for both layered performance and innovative camera work and sound.
“I don’t go to the cinema to be ‘entertained’ as such,” she says. “I want to be transported. Or to have my perspective on something completely upended.”
In 2017 Georgia directed a short like that - ‘Little Bird’. A project she believes was a level up for her, and one that she was able to shoot on film for the first time. “It was a turning point for me. I’m pretty sure that film is the reason I got my first meeting with BBC Film, who went on to finance ‘Blue Jean’ along with the BFI.”
As expected, ‘Blue Jean’ was an even bigger, and certainly scarier, step forward. The film follows Jean – a PE teacher at a secondary school in 1988 Newcastle. Her story unravels before us, when a new student threatens to expose her sexuality, which she has so far hidden from the school.
Above: Still from 'Blue Jean'
“We spent such a long time researching the film and roping in a number of real women to help us make sure we were as honest in our depiction of Jean’s life as we could be,” shares Georgia. It was precisely through this meticulous process that Georgia better understood the magnitude of Section 28 – a legislative designation for a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. Section 28 remained effective from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland, and to 2003 in England and Wales.
“I understood the ripple effects systemic homophobia can have for generations. After all that, plus the energy it took to push the film over the finish line, it felt like a really deep exhale to be nominated for a BAFTA. Some sort of acknowledgement of all that collective pain.
“It meant a lot to me career-wise, but more than that it felt like a meaningful reward for all the brave women who had so generously shared their stories with us.”
Georgia says that she still remembers waking up with a “sense of impending dread” during the year leading up to the shooting of ‘Blue Jean’. The country had been in lockdown for the better part of a year, and she had a three year old and a little puppy on her hands.
“Along with the rest of the world, I was a bit out of sorts,” she laughs. “The idea that someone was going to trust me with that amount of money to make a film that I knew was likely to make or break my career was pretty paralysing.
“When you’ve worked that hard, for that long, the imposter syndrome spins out of control. We put a lot of pressure on first-timers. Creativity is so intertwined with failure, so why don’t we acknowledge that more?”
A question worth asking at the advertising industry too – one that Georgia intends to join after watching from the sidelines for a while. As she’s observed narratives in commercials getting bolder and messages becoming more inclusive, she felt like now is the right time to find out what else is out there.
“Ever since my first job in commercials all those years ago, now I’m excited to see what I might be able to offer this space as a storyteller. I see it as an exciting opportunity to hone my craft, work with highly-skilled practitioners and tell stories across shorter time frames.”
And while Georgia’s excited to spread her wings in the advertising industry, we know that some leaks in its floor need addressing. Pride month is rearing its rainbow-plastered head from social media’s corners, and it’s only fitting that I touch base with Georgia on how her experience as a queer woman will affect her commercial work and overall existence in the commercial space.
“I think it means I’ve got a pretty well-honed ‘bullshit’ radar,” she says assuredly. “It’s quite clear to me when brands are just paying lip service to underrepresented groups rather than actually doing the work to get us where we need to go. The messages brands put out into the world have the potential to be extremely damaging. So, as a queer person and as a parent, I care deeply about the kinds of messages we’re putting out there.”
The conversation moves on to themes in Georgia’s work and how she’ll continue those through her commercials, and she tells me that she’s recently been reading ‘Doppelganger’ by Naomi Klein – a reflection of her obsession with the idea of ‘the double’.
“I’m thinking about it more than usual. But generally speaking, film is a great medium by which to explore the discrepancies between a character’s inner and outer worlds, which is something I think I’ve always explored in my work,” she says. Other themes that never grow old for her are those of parenting and family, deconstructing what ‘family’ even means.
“Rebirth and reinvention,” she adds. “And yeah, I don’t differentiate between thematic inspiration in the commercial world and the fictional space. I’m drawn to what I’m drawn to and that isn’t going to change.” Reassuring. And incredibly exciting for the commercial world. So, watch this space.
