2. Thesocial-
realismgenre
Our group decided that we wanted to create a film
under the social-realism genre.
Social realism focuses on giving the audience a true
indication of what life is like.
Raymond Williams defines social-realism as “grounded
in the contemporary scene in terms of setting,
characters and social issues”.
Conventions of this film genre include: Realistic
storylines, home settings, working class/cultural
struggles, and social injustices.
3. Inspiration
Our main inspiration has been ‘Bend it like Beckham’, a
film within the social-realism and comedy drama genres.
The film follows Jess, an British-Indian girl who dreams
of becoming a professional footballer, but who faces
conflict from her parents, Indian culture and religion.
Our film follows a similar path; our main character,
Amirah, wants to be a professional dancer. However, her
parents want her to become a doctor.
It was very important for us, as a group of ethnic
minorities, to capture the reality that comes from being
the children of immigrants. The majority of Asian and
black students feel pressure from their parents to follow
conventional careers that have a natural, guaranteed path
to success.
We wanted our film to be relatable to teenagers who
experience intergenerational conflict with their parents
who may have not had a chance to dream.
4. Inspiration
Like ‘Bend it like Beckham’, and other social-realism
films such as ‘The New Monty’, we have created
hybridity by combining social-realism with comedy
through our script, which has funny phrases teenagers
can relate to.
Like Jess, Amirah is headstrong and despite being
family-orientated, does not hesitate to lie to her family
in order to work towards her dreams.
