Debbie Harman

North Sea Sisters is a film commissioned by Girls With Capes. 

https://www.greenfilmproductions.co.uk/girlswithcapes

The film is a work in progress that has drifted through many forms. 


This story found its edges through Yorkshire and North East film archive with such tender, beautiful images of women at Saltburn beach through the ages. My film idea was girls who battle the elements and the everyday. The film premise was simply to bring a group of girls together, some of whom had never met to try surfing. Beyond that to try heal some of the burden pandemic days had crashed down on us all. I felt very privileged they were willing to try movement and performance alongside just enjoying the ocean.


The experience of making this film has transformed its own direction. These women came with open and some broken hearts. Grieving lost parents, dealing with social work, mental health, discovering their new identity, holding it together. I recognised myself in them, my brother with cancer. (Some days it just really hurts). I found solace in the North Sea.


These girls came to find something beyond themselves, some wonder far out to the horizon. The first day was hard, talking head interviews, tears and intense ethical questions, how is it fair of me to share such pain?

The next day the sun shone and quite literally that new day broke us all wide open. These women cradled each other, they rested peacefully sleeping in the sea, side by side, then on each other’s shoulders. They moved not as trained performers but as women offering all that they could to their environment and each other. The lines of nature echoing those of these women, lines that hold strong or bend with the wind, and find rest in the shallows. These girls gave physically what their words could not, they were all looking for hope. I think this film is that collective hope.

*******

This film is inspired and for my brother, Ben. May his air of optimism and kindness forever be my greatest strength.

North Sea Sisters is a film commissioned by Girls With Capes. 

https://www.greenfilmproductions.co.uk/girlswithcapes

The film is a work in progress that has drifted through many forms. 


This story found its edges through Yorkshire and North East film archive with such tender, beautiful images of women at Saltburn beach through the ages. My film idea was girls who battle the elements and the everyday. The film premise was simply to bring a group of girls together, some of whom had never met to try surfing. Beyond that to try heal some of the burden pandemic days had crashed down on us all. I felt very privileged they were willing to try movement and performance alongside just enjoying the ocean.


The experience of making this film has transformed its own direction. These women came with open and some broken hearts. Grieving lost parents, dealing with social work, mental health, discovering their new identity, holding it together. I recognised myself in them, my brother with cancer. (Some days it just really hurts). I found solace in the North Sea.


These girls came to find something beyond themselves, some wonder far out to the horizon. The first day was hard, talking head interviews, tears and intense ethical questions, how is it fair of me to share such pain?

The next day the sun shone and quite literally that new day broke us all wide open. These women cradled each other, they rested peacefully sleeping in the sea, side by side, then on each other’s shoulders. They moved not as trained performers but as women offering all that they could to their environment and each other. The lines of nature echoing those of these women, lines that hold strong or bend with the wind, and find rest in the shallows. These girls gave physically what their words could not, they were all looking for hope. I think this film is that collective hope.

*******

This film is inspired and for my brother, Ben. May his air of optimism and kindness forever be my greatest strength.

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