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Still Loved at iDocs in beijing, china

11/23/2016

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Written by Director, Debbie Howard

Still Loved was invited to screen at i Docs International Documentary Forum in Beijing, China on Tuesday 15th November 2016 by festival Director Cherelle Zheng.
 
It was with enormous excitement that I travelled to China on 13th November, leaving straight from Cork Film Festival in Ireland where Still Loved had screened the night before.
 
After a long flight I was greeted at the airport by one of the volunteers from the festival and taken to the hotel in a traditional hotong of old style Beijing. I had already missed the first few days of the festival, due to the screening in Cork Film Festival, and was jet lagged and exhausted on arrival. After a quick nap I met up with one of the other filmmakers who was in the hotel, Karen Guthrie Who’s film The Closer We Get was screening that night. It was great to meet Karen and she escorted me down to the Beijing Film Academy to meet the team and all the other film makers from around the world. 

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A beautiful banquet had been arranged for everyone at a nearby restaurant. What an incredible first night treat this was, with exceptional food and great company. After that I went to see The Closer We Get, a moving, beautiful film about her family secret that was both funny and sad and wonderful.
 
The following night was the screening of Still Loved. Nothing could have prepared me for this experience. Over 1000 people turned up to see Still Loved, crowded into the packed cinema, it was quite an experience! Watching the film subtitled into Mandarin and listening to the reaction of such a large audience was very moving. The Q&A afterwards was an experience I will never forget. A Q&A with so many people is quite complicated, especially with a translator and language issues. This lasted about 15 minutes because the next day was a much more in depth discussion about the film in a two hour masterclass. After the screening, several people waiting behind for me to sign their tickets as memorabilia.
 
The following day the masterclass I gave was hosted by Melanie Ansley Of China Hollywood. A filmmaker from LA that works in both the US and China. This was an extensive discussion about the making of the film and gave hundreds of people the opportunity to ask more in depth questions, again via two translators and also Melanie was able to clear up any misunderstandings that were still confusing. 
​Still Loved was very well received, but it was very interesting screening to this audience with such a difficult cultural frame of reference. Some people had said how much they had cried in the film, others were very angry and others confused. For a culture that until recently had a one child only policy, termination is common here and especially the termination of girls. So I was told that they don’t really bond with the baby until it is born, and that a baby that has died would not be considered a human being. So it must have been quite hard for them to understand the feelings of the families in the film.
 
This was not the case for everyone though. Some people were clearly very moved and it maybe brought up feelings about their own terminations that they had chosen not to give much thought to until now.
 
Many people stayed behind to ask personal questions after the masterclass had finished. Someone told me her friend had recently had a stillbirth and asked how best to support her. There were many personal questions and I could see that for some the film had really moved them, and for others they were angry, but this was also useful I thought because it had opened up a debate and started a thought process, which is always the beginning of change. 
​We had an expression of interest from a Chinese documentary distributor who is very interested in buying the film for a Chinese audience. We’ll be passing this onto our international sales agent CatnDocs.
 
It was a complicated and difficult experience, but one that I very much am delighted to have had the chance to have. One indeed, that I will never forget.
 
I then enjoyed several more days of films and masterclasses from the other filmmakers. 
I’d like to say an enormous thank you to Cherelle, Lulu and Candice and everyone at i Docs for inviting us. It was wonderful to meet them and all the other filmmakers from around the world.
 
What an incredible experience China has been and I’m thrilled that so many people came to see Still Loved there. 
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Once the festival ended I stayed on for a few more days getting the most out of my opportunity to be in China. I packed in as much as I could visiting the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Houhai Lakes, Tiananmen Square, The Lama Temple and exploring the hotongs and markets.

Still Loved is now available on Vimeo on Demand. You can watch it HERE 
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Still Loved at cork film festival, ireland

11/23/2016

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Written by Debbie Howard

​We were delighted to be invited to screen Still Loved at Cork International Film Festival Ireland in November 2016. Both myself and Producer Colin Pons attended. This was our first official film festival screening so it was an exciting event for us. We also were invited to screen at i Docs in Beijing and unfortunately both events were at the same time, so rather than miss either of them, we jiggled some dates around and the wonderful festival Director at Cork, James Mulligan, helpfully agreed to screen Still Loved right at the beginning of Cork Film Festival, so that we could screen on the Saturday 12th November and then leave for China on the Sunday morning. 
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What a fantastic city Cork is. We were greeted by our driver at the airport on Friday night and taken to the lovely Ambassador Hotel. On Saturday morning we quickly ran around putting up posters and flyers for the screening and promoting the film. 
 
We screened Still Loved at The Gate Cinema at 6.30pm on Saturday evening. The audience were fantastic and James Mulligan led a great Q&A afterwards. We were joined by Mairie Cregan from Feileacain, the Irish baby loss support charity. 
​We got some wonderful feedback from the audience.
 
"Excellent. Included siblings, fathers, grandparents and friends, showing the ripple effect and the continued bond of attachment to a baby who is still part of the family."

Joann O’Leary, Minnesota
 
"This is an excellent film that should be compulsory public viewing. Congratulations to the Still Loved team on a job well done."

Margaret Murphy, UCC, Ireland
 
"A very strong film on life and death issues. It makes the audience reflect on the miracle that is human life in all it’s forms and how it should be cherished and nurtured. It should be seen by as broad an audience as possible."
Ray Hill, Ireland
 
"A fantastic movie with very important educational aspects. As a nursing student, I see the importance of how these situations are handled. A positive experience is imperative where as a negative experience resonates with the family forever and lengthens the healing time. I think it should be shown to all student of each discipline."
Jenna Kelly, Ireland
 
From this screening we got invited to attend the International Stillbirth Alliance Conference next year in Cork, which we are very much looking forward to. 
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​After the screening we went out to dinner with James Mulligan who told us how powerful he had found the film. He said that it was the second film he programmed for the festival, and knew instantly on watching it that he wanted to include it in his program.
 
Regrettably we had to leave beautiful Cork and the rest of a fantastic festival very early Sunday morning. We were honoured and delighted to be included in the festival and huge thanks to James for programming us and helping to bring Still Loved to an international audience. 

​Still Loved is now available on Vimeo on Demand. You can watch HERE 
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The Still Loved tour

11/22/2016

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Written by Director Debbie Howard

​I’ve just completed the Still Loved Tour and I’m writing this blog to let you know my thoughts and how it all went and give some useful tips and advice to independent filmmakers out there who are self distributing their own films. We have an international Sales Agent, CatnDocs, but we split rights with them right at the beginning so we could do the UK ourselves. So this relates to our UK release only. 
 
Throughout the making of this film we’ve been told there is no audience. No one will want to watch this film. I always knew that was wrong, but the tour has proved that, which makes me very happy.
 
As this is the first time I have released a feature length documentary, I learned a huge amount along the way. Firstly,  how important it is to have a budget for your release. Because we struggled financially to complete Still Loved we had completely run out of money for this part of the process. So make sure you budget for your release. Luckily, we were given a grant of £10,000 from a very helpful charity called the Jessica Mathers Trust, due to the subject matter of the film. Without this, we couldn’t have done this, so my thanks goes out to them.  £10,000 may seem a lot, but there is so much to pay for to get a film out there.
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Firstly, we hired a booker, Martin Myers of Miracle Communications, who we met when we attended the incredibly useful Distribution Rewired at Edinburgh Film Festival in June. Distribution Rewired is all about self distribution and new ways of doing this. Ran by the wonderful Beatrice Neumann. I would highly recommend attending for great ideas and advice. Martin is very experienced at booking films into cinemas and has great contacts. He watched Still Loved and really liked the film so agreed to come on board and help us get the film into cinemas. Next we hired a team of publicists to use their skills and expertise to help us get some good press for the film. We worked with Multitude Media. I had met Will Wood at Distribution Rewired the year before and he had expressed an interest in the film, so I got back in touch and he agreed to come on board to help us. We worked with his team, mainly Emily Brazee, and also Amy Melson and Lucy Miller too.
 
It was vital to us to release the film in October, during baby loss awareness month, with an emphasis on the 15th October, International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. We knew this would give us maximum opportunities for press and publicity.
 
The wonderful Tommy’s Baby Charity also offered their help and supporting during the release of the film, and we worked with Hannah Blake and Siobhan Gray who did so much to help us spread the word.
 
Multitude Media, Martin Myers, Hannah and I all met together in London to discuss a strategy and who would do what. I told them all I knew and linked them up to all the baby loss support groups and we all shared our contacts, knowledge and expertise to maximise our efforts in making as big a splash as we could with the film.
 
After the meeting Tommy’s shared lot’s of information about the film in their news letters and I wrote some blogs for them. Multitude prepared their press release and started to send this out to various newspapers, magazines, radio shows and television companies. Martin got to work on booking us into cinemas and I did all I can to contact everyone I could think of to help us.
 
Things were slow to start. We had an incredibly disappointing response from cinemas, who, as usual with this subject matter of stillbirth, shied away from screening Still Loved. Some sent a one line email saying things like: “There is no interest in this subject matter” which really annoyed me. I wrote a lot of emails back telling them why they were wrong. This changed things with some cinemas, but not others. Unfortunately, only 5 cinemas were brave enough to book the film directly. There were a couple of others that were interested but couldn’t program us until next year. We wanted to strike while we had our publicists on board so needed to make sure as many of them were in October as possible. The cinemas that booked us directly were Sheffield Showroom, Nottingham Broadway, London Picturehouse Central, Belfast Queen’s Theatre and Derby Quad. Big thanks to all of those cinemas for being brave enough to take a risk on the film.
 
Another company I had  met at Distribution Rewired were Ourscreen. This was an interesting new model where you book the cinema directly through them, and you have to sell a certain amount of tickets before a deadline. If you don’t sell them the screening gets cancelled. If you do sell them, it gets confirmed and goes ahead. We decided to book a lot of screenings through them as 5 cinemas weren’t enough for our tour. Working with Ourscreen was difficult at first, because no one really wants to buy a cinema ticket 4 or 6 weeks before a screening and trying to convince people was very difficult, so I wasn’t sure at first this was going to work.
 
Some of the cinemas only needed you to sell around 25 – 30 tickets. Others were much higher and one, Cardiff Vue required 97 tickets to be sold in advance, a crazy amount! So I pretty much lived on social media for the next few weeks, tweeting, facebooking, contacting as many useful organisations as possible to let them know about the screenings. Let me tell you one thing about Ourscreen: If you just book a cinema and leave it at that, nothing will happen. It will be cancelled. Expect to do an enormous amount of work promoting the screenings. For anyone that’s ran a successful crowdfunding campaign, it’s similar and as much hard work.
 
During this time we had a massive problem with the DCP (Digital Cinema Print) not being formatted properly and we had to keep having it remade to the right format for various cinemas. This swallowed up a big chunk of the budget that we were hoping to keep to be able to cover the 6 weeks I had to take off paid work to do the tour. The money was disappearing fast.
 
We also had to get the film classified at BBfc which again, which again is very expensive. You also have to have it classified for DVD and VOD as well. Note that if you can work with a charity and go through them, you can get a much lower rate. Tommy’s very kindly let us do this through them which saved us quite a chunk of money. So depending on the subject of your film, this could be an option for you.
 
We then had to re design the poster and flyers and get those printed. The budget was dwindling fast.
 
We started to see some success with Ourscreen and many of the screenings started to get confirmed, which was fantastic. Multitude Media were working wonders with press by this point and we had started to get some fantastic national press and reviews, and some local press to for individual screenings. All of a sudden, after a terrible start, things started to go crazy! The tour started and our World Premiere was at AMC Cinema in Manchester. The next few weeks were a whirlwind of dashing up and down the country, doing press interviews, radio shows and screenings followed by Q&A’s.
 
We redesigned the poster once some of the reviews came in. I was delighted that we got a four star review in the Guardian and many other highly acclaimed reviews and articles in the Observer, Little White Lies, The Lancet, The Mirror and others. You can read these on our website if you look through our previous blogs, they are all listed.
 
“There is no interest in the subject”. Those words kept ringing in my ears. I’m delighted to say that we totally proved those programmers wrong.  We sold out at many of our screenings and often had to be moved to bigger screens to accommodate the audience. The ones that weren’t sold out were extremely well attended. We even managed to pull off Cardiff, with the 97 pre sold tickets, which was fantastic. Ourscreen works incredibly well for a film of this kind, where you know there is an audience, but the gatekeepers won't let you in. As long as you're prepared to put the work in, it's a great way to get your film into cinemas.
 
At every screening we had a Q&A afterwards. This was enormously important I felt. We always had an panel consisting of either one or more of the parents from the film, or a bereaved parent from the local area, baby loss befrienders or support workers from Tommy’s, Sands or Our Angels, or a bereavement midwife, sometimes senior consultants like Alexander Heazell from Tommy’s, myselt and sometimes our Producers Polly Perkins or Colin Pons. We had different Chair people leading the discussion at each screening. This led to some very interesting questions and discussion after the film and some of the Q&A’s went on for up to an hour.
I was absolutely delighted with the response from the audiences as well as the reviews from the press. At every screening we gave out feedback forms and asked the audience to rate the film out of five stars and also give us anonymous or named feedback. We now have an incredibly huge pile of feedback forms from all the screenings. Not one of them is less than four stars and most are five. We had overwhelmingly fantastic feedback. At our screening in Manchester one member of the audience started a petition to get Still Loved on national TV. That petition is now at almost 12,000 signatures. You can add yours here 
 
We found that our audience was made up of many people that had been affected by the loss of a baby either directly, or someone close to them. Whilst we had expected this, we hadn’t anticipated how many of them found the film to be incredibly positive and we had some wonderful comments, especially from the recently bereaved as to how the film had helped them to feel normal again and see that there is hope for the future.
 
What we hadn’t expected was the great quantity of midwives, student midwives, doctors and other health care professionals that came along, and how exceptionally useful they found the film. We also had funeral directors and bereavement councillors, as well as filmmakers and members of the general public. It was fantastic to hear the feedback from health care professionals as to how helpful the film had been and how it would inform their practice in the future. This couldn’t be better news as they are the ones on the front line, and this could potentially help to save babies lives in the future.
 
During the tour we had completely run out of money so didn’t have enough to even cover my time, as I had to take several weeks off any other kind of work to do the tour. We kept a Just Giving campaign running throughout the tour where people could donate on line and at the end of each screening we put a pot out for donations from the audience and people were generous. This covered my travel and food etc, which was very helpful. It wasn’t good to have to do this, but we didn’t have much choice. This is low budget filmmaking indeed!
 
We are now getting enormous demand for the film to be used for training purposes and getting requests for additional screenings in universities and support services. We got an incredible two page review in The Lancet the bible for health care professionals, so this is wonderful.
 
As the tour drew to an end other cinemas started to contact us to book screenings for next year which is great and other people started to create their own screenings on Ourscreen. Not all of these have come off, due to the hard work it takes to do this, but some of these have already been confirmed.
 
At the end of the tour we screened at our first two film festivals, Cork Film Festival in Ireland and iDocs in Beijing China where we screened to over 1000 people! These were incredible experiences in their own right and you can read the blogs on links above.
 
We’re still hoping for a TV broadcast now we have evidence there is a big audience for our film and how many people want to see it. In the meantime, it’s now available in the UK on Vimeo on Demand. You can watch the film here
 
We’ll be writing to TV commissioners again and sending them facts and figures as well as reviews now the tour is over. We’re working hard to make the film available to health care professionals and others as widely as we can next year but need to raise more funding to enable us to do this. We also want to subtitle the film into several languages to make available in other countries. 
 
I’m absolutely thrilled at the response to the film and couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I’d like to thank every single person that came out to see the film, the families in the film and all those that took part in the panel, our booker, publicists Multitude Media, Tommy’s, Sands, Our Angels, the cinemas that booked us, Ourscreen, Distribution Rewired, the Still Loved team, the journalists that covered the film and gave us great reviews, the Jessica Mathers Trust and everyone that donated to our Just Giving recently to help us fund the tour, and all those that have supported us previously and helped us get this far and anyone that has supported us in many others ways.  ​
I hope some of this information might be useful for anyone self distributing for the first time. Good luck! 

Written by Director/Producer Debbie Howard.
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Little White Lies article about Still loved

11/5/2016

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On 4th November Little White Lies published this article about Still Loved. Written by Caroline Middleton. You can read the article on their website HERE
Why is stillbirth such a conversation stopper in a society that sees 7,000 babies born dead every day? That’s the question posed in a vital new feature documentary called Still Loved, which investigates the meagre support system provided to the families affected by this issue, giving them a much-needed voice.Three years in the making, the film begins with a candle-lit vigil on International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day commemorating these children, attended by the parents and siblings who have experienced the tragedy of stillbirth. Comprising interviews that expose the emptiness and loneliness that these parents felt following their heartbreaking ordeals, director Debbie Howard seeks to offset the deafening silence that characterises their experiences. By doing so, she reveals a shocking negligence of support both professionally and personally over a topic stigmatised by what the stiff upper-lip’s of this world dub embarrassing emotionality.

Still Loved demonstrates that the physical loss of a baby is not considered in conjunction with the mental support these parents urgently need in order to cope with the passing of a child they’d created, developed a relationship with, and who had died in the hours it was anticipated that he or she would be welcomed into the world. More than a lack of closure, there is a distinct lack of compassion for the unexpected and often sudden news that their baby won’t survive, even down to definitions. One woman’s birth was signed off as an abortion, another as a stillbirth when medical negligence was the true culprit.

Hope, however, prevails, as it follows the families in their recovery, documenting the different coping mechanisms they individually apply. One starts a charity, one chairs a charity, one refuses to have another child. The process of moving on is hard, but we witness that too, as the families continue to honour their offspring’s memory. In a time of celebrating an exciting new hello, stillbirth is a poignant, shattering goodbye, and Still Loved rights a wrong in educating audiences on the importance of treating the subject with the action and compassion it deserves.

Still Loved is in cinemas across the UK now. Visit stilllovedfilm.com/screenings to find out where the film is showing near you.

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The lancet review of still loved

10/28/2016

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Alice Jolly
Published: 29 October 2016
Every year, throughout the world, 2·6 million babies are stillborn. That is about the equivalent of the population of Rome. Although I myself am a bereaved mother and stillbirth campaigner, I still find myself struggling to accept this number. But it comes from The Lancet itself, which published a Series aimed at ending preventable stillbirths earlier this year. Still Loved, a full length documentary film about the impact of stillbirth for affected families, begins with a quote from The Lancet's Richard Horton: “This is one of the most neglected, marginalised and stigmatised issues in global health today.”
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So given this background of denial and disbelief, how is it that Still Loved is now playing in cinemas up and down the UK? Largely it is due to the courage of film-maker Debbie Howard, from the Sheffield-based film company Big Buddha Films. She initially tried to raise money for the film through the usual channels. Finding that no-one was interested, she spent 4 years crowdfunding the film. When she approached cinemas some told her, with a remarkable lack of tact, that no-one would be interested in that kind of film. But other cinemas were prepared to take the risk. Some screenings of the film are now being followed by question and answer sessions. Those who have seen the film are often shocked but also impressed.

It is certainly true that Still Loved is a film that pulls no punches. It looks in forensic detail at seven bereaved families in the UK over 3 years. These couples talk in intimate detail about what actually happens when a baby dies. They speak about medical procedures, thoughts and feelings, practicalities, the intensity of their pain.

The film is beautifully shot and cuts smoothly from one issue to another. The scenes seem paradoxically to be both grittily realistic and strangely other-worldly. The music adds to the haunting and haunted atmosphere. Particularly effective is the use of slightly shaky home shot footage taken by the families themselves which creates an unsettling and painful claustrophobia. Overall, the result takes us over the boundaries of documentary and into the realms of art.

The home shot footage also, inevitably, includes actual images of babies who are dead or dying. The decision not to draw back from these images is particularly courageous but also challenging. It is only in recent years that such images have been seen anywhere, let alone on cinema screens. What they do is bring home the simple fact that these are real lives—lives that could have lasted many years—but are now lost.

So the film is certainly devastatingly accurate but what can we learn from it? What I saw, above all else, is how important ritual becomes in times of extreme adversity. In a now largely secular society, rituals have to be reinvented. We watch as mourners use teddy bears, wind chimes, and named blankets to make domestic shrines. Photograph albums and memory boxes are created with a near-religious intensity. We watch as one couple struggles with the question of how to hold a first birthday party for a baby who is not there, and applaud the brave friends who stand in the back garden listening to speeches and letting go of balloons.

Denial and silence are also a significant part of the lived experience. One of the most moving moments in the film comes when one of the bereaved fathers says, with quiet dignity, that he always makes an effort to attend the birthday parties organised by friends who have living children. Yet most of those same friends have never asked where his son is buried. Also, a mother shows the photograph of her dead babies which are proudly displayed in her front room. She then tells the story of a visitor to the house who asked for the photographs to be turned to face the wall.

But finally is the film too claustrophobic? Should it have moved beyond these specific stories to ask bigger questions about why so many babies are stillborn? After all, in the UK about half of unexplained stillbirths might be linked to poor medical care. Should the film not have included more about understaffed maternity wards, lack of sufficient scanning, poor recording of information?

On balance, I tend to think not. Ultimately, the narrow focus of the film is its strength. All those wider questions are there but it is the viewer who has to consider them. This is that rare film which actually manages to be highly political without ever mentioning politics. All that Debbie Howard—and those seven families—are doing is simply asking that we should see.

This may seem a rather limited ambition but as writer James Baldwin says, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” That sadly tells you all you need to know about why the rate of stillbirths in the UK remains stubbornly high.

Yet this situation is not devoid of hope. Things are changing—slowly. The fact that a film such as Still Loved has been made can be understood as part of a wider—and positive—shift in attitudes to death. Look at the surprise success in the UK of Death Cafés and of the Dying Matters coalition with its simple slogan, “Let's Talk About It”. Both are evidence that we are realising that endless “feel good” stories do not make us feel good in the longer term. You cannot live fully if you are not also able to accept death. Emotional authenticity may have more to offer us than the coercive mantra of “positive thinking”.

The families shown in Still Loved have so much to teach us—not just about stillbirths but about bereavement and adversity more generally. No-one in the film talks about “moving on” or “getting over it”. Instead they are interested in how life and death can be integrated. They all discover in different ways how we can keep our loved one alive—not as a reason for endless mourning but rather as a source of inspiration, courage, and continuing love for the living.

Still Loved also makes clear—by showing the comfort offered by family and friends—that we all have a role to play in this. The medical profession may be on the front line but if wider society is going to deal better with stillbirths and death, we have to work on the problem as a community. At this time of year we could ditch all those ghastly trick or treat sweets, and the rubber skeletons, and take a walk in the local cemetery instead, honouring our own dead and that greater mass of the dead who all contributed in some way to the world we now live in. Or more simply, but more courageously, we could just take the time to ask a bereaved friend if they would like to share some photographs or memories.

Interestingly, research from the University of Oxford University has suggested that weeping in the cinema might actually make us feel better. Apparently, it increases feelings of group bonding and raises levels of endorphins in the brain. So get yourself along to a screening of Still Loved and have a good cry. You might feel much better for it. You could also sign the petition on the film's website that has been set up to persuade broadcasters to show the film on television. Most of us want to live in a world where all the stories are heard, even the ones which are challenging. But sadly those who supply our “culture” often decide we need protecting from the reality of the world we are living in. Thankfully, Debbie Howard and the families who feature in Still Loved want to share experiences of stillbirth and tell it like it is—pushing the issue of stillbirths into the mainstream. But we have a long way to go and the road ahead is all uphill.

Still Loved Directed by Debbie Howard. Big Buddha Films, 2016 http://www.stilllovedfilm.com/

For screening in the UK see http://www.stilllovedfilm.com/screenings.html
Written by Alice Jolly, author of Dead Babies And Seaside Towns, a memoir of surrogacy and stillbirth. It was published in 2015 by Unbound and won the PEN Ackerley Prize in 2016. The proceeds from the book are donated to Sands (The Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity).

To read the article in The Lancet click here and register. 

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daily mirror article

10/27/2016

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With one in four pregnancies ending in a loss on International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day three sets of parents tell how the trauma was so hard to bear

Pregnancy brings hope and joy, but every year in the UK more than 5,000 parents leave hospital without their baby.

The tragedy of one in four pregnancies is that it ends in a loss which can include miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies and stillbirths.

But the stigma of talking about the death of babies means that parents are suffering in silence.
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International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day falls on October 15, and it's a time when those who have lived through the pain of losing their child at birth hope their stories will give strength to others.

Mum Lou's son says that her first child, a son named Finley, was 10 weeks premature and spent a long period in the neonatal unit.

Lou was terrified of her second pregnancy after her first was prematureSo when she discovered she was pregnant with her little girl Lauren , she was petrified.
"I had this feeling of doom," she says. "As the pregnancy progressed I was more more and depressed and more and more anxious."
On January 9, 2009, when Lou was 36 weeks pregnant she suddenly became aware that he was in a lot of pain in her abdomen coming in waves.
Believing she had gone into labour, she leaped up and thought her waters broke. Running upstairs to tell her husband, Matt, she said: "The baby's coming, the baby's coming."
He turned to her and, Lou says: "My jeans were soaked in blood."

Lou says having Lauren's grave has helped her to deal with the lossLou says she was in a state of denial and was laughing and joking with the paramedics, but she was really in shock about what was happening.
She wasn't the only one struggling with the horrific reality: "Something in Matt just snapped. He was like a wild animal. He was howling, thumping his head, thumping the walls.
"For the moment, I forgot the terrible labour pain I was in and the midwife had to focus on him."

Matt said he had to leave and apologised to Lou.
She recalls: "The only saving grace of it was that my labour with Lauren was very brief and because she had only died a few hours before she was born, her appearance was not of a baby who had died.
"She just looked a little bit paler than normal, but it really just was of a baby who was asleep."
Beth and Steve were thrilled when one baby turned out to be two at the start of their pregnancyLou is just one of seven mums - and dads - who have shared their tragic stories with the makers of a new documentary which examines those families who have heartbreak visited upon them when a baby is stillborn.
Called Still Loved, the film - released to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness Month - follows seven couples, showing their stories of stillbirth and providing a profound insight into the effects of the death of a baby.
The documentary, from Big Buddha Films , gives a voice to all those affected, from bereaved mothers to often-overlooked fathers, many of whom open up about their experience for the first time ever on camera.
This is a brave, inclusive and important film for all, not just those with first-hand experience of baby loss.
Beth and Steve tell the heartbreaking story of the loss of Felicity and Harriet, their twins - although, when they first found out Beth was pregnant: "We had no idea that our little miracle was actually two."
On July 2, 2012, while staying in Yorkshire, Beth went into labour at 21 weeks, and the babies did not survive.

Twins Felicity and Harriet were born to Steve and Beth 19 weeks early"There was no hope for either of them," Beth remembers. "You could see on the scan they were struggling."

"[Medical staff] came in to explain our options. We could either wait for contractions to come on or they needed to induce so that I was OK. The induction is essentially an abortion, and that's what they made me sign for."
The babies were born together, which Beth says "gave us a bit of comfort".
Beth adds: "I am a mum and [Steve's] a dad, but we don't have any children."
Couple Juliette and Matt were thrilled when they found out that they were expecting a boy, and say the pregnancy was not a difficult one.
Matt admits that while Juliette bathed stillborn Ben, he couldn't deal with itBen was stillborn on November 26 weighing 6lbs.
"Small but perfectly formed, we like to say," Juliette smiles.
Although she spent time with Ben and bathed him, Matt admits it was something he stepped back from.
"I couldn't be there for that, I said to myself 'I don't think I can cope with that'. I went outside and spoke to my parents.

"To this day, I regret not doing that.
"We had four hours with Ben, which was lovely."
Juliette adds: "You find yourself making a lifetime of memories in a very very short space of time."

Ben was 6lb and 'perfect' say parents Juliette and MattFollowing the loss, Matt admits he 'felt a lot of anger' and was expected just to get on with his life regardless.
Still Loved is supported by Tommy’s, the baby charity which funds research into stillbirth, miscarriage and pregnancy complications.
The film's director Debbie Howard says that despite the taboos surrounding stillbirths, “the parents were very happy to finally have a voice".
"When a baby dies, it’s still a baby. It’s still a child that is loved, cherished and wanted.
"Parents feel they can’t talk about their baby because other people don’t know how to cope with it.”
Debbie says that it wasn't hard to find families who wanted to share their stories, and we should encourage this openness.

Steve and Beth were told there was no hope for their twin girls"We're really bad at talking about death and grief in our society, we're closed about that sort of thing. And it's massively heightened when it comes to the death of a baby.

"People don't know the statistics and they fail to realise that it's someone's child who has died, someone's baby.
"You've thought about names, talked about them with their siblings, you've thought about and planned future events, and then your child dies."
Debbie says that a pregnancy is no guarantee that parents will end up with a live baby, and the statistics show that their are many parents like those in the documentary.
"The anticipation means people have decorated nurseries, bought clothes and pushchairs, and then are left with all that stuff. It's heartbreaking.
"What do you do with all that stuff after the baby is gone?
"And what does it mean if it was your first child - you ask yourself 'am I a mum or a dad?', 'am I a parent if my baby has not survived?'."
The film has a digital release on November 1. For further information, visit the website .

Read in The Mirror here 
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Televisual article about still loved

10/27/2016

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I set up Big Buddha Films ten years ago and have made many short films, both fiction and documentary. My latest short film, Peekaboo, was about stillbirth. When I finished it I knew I wanted to make a feature documentary about baby loss as it was something I had become very passionate about. So I started work on Still Loved.

I now realise the enormity of that decision. For a first time feature documentary maker to make a film about one of the society’s biggest taboos was no small task. There is so much stigma around baby loss. No wants to talk about it even though one in four pregnancies end in a loss. We dealt with closed doors from the industry all along the way. We were continuously told, “There is no interest in this subject.” This shocked me. I think the point of documentaries is to educate and challenge attitudes, to make change. But I didn’t give up.

Four years later and we are now releasing Still Loved into cinemas across the UK in October, during Baby Loss Awareness Month. We have a Distributor onboard CatnDocs and we screen at our first two film festivals in November. We have made a powerful, sensitive, thought-provoking film that I am very proud of.

We shot Still Loved over 3 years working closely with seven families. Most of the film was shot on a Sony PMW 200. Our DoP, Emma Dalesman did an incredible job. For scenes that needed a certain look we used a Canon C300 with sliders and macro lenses and a Sony FS7. We also used a drone and Go Pro’s and some of the contributors also self shot on small video cameras and phones for a much more personal feel.

We filmed close-up intimate shots of the babies items on motion control with Charlie Paul at Itch Studio. They specialise in working with documentary filmmakers and have a truly creative approach to examining and treating memorabilia, photos, archive film and materials in an innovative way to tailor a unique style for each of the films they work on.  Charlie used a DSLR camera with long focal length macro lenses mounted on the rig. He shot high resolution time-lapse sequences which allowed us to move the camera at exceptionally slow speeds with shallow depth of field and long exposure shutter speeds.

Still Loved was beautifully edited by Joby Gee and the Supervising Sound Editor was George Foulgham. Post production was completed at Molinare, London.

http://www.stilllovedfilm.com
@StillLovedDoc / @BigBuddhaFilms

Read in Televisual here
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Nottingham post interview 

10/27/2016

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Woman who gave birth to two stillborn babies appearing in film about pregnancy lossBy zararubin  |  Posted: September 23, 2016

A Nottingham woman who gave birth to two stillborn babies is set to appear in a documentary about pregnancy loss.

Each year in the UK over 5,000 parents leave hospital without their baby and one in four pregnancies end in a loss.

Julie Cooke, 48, gave birth to a stillborn baby boy in December 2004 and then again in November 2005.
She said: "In 2004, I was pregnant with my fourth child, but the first with my now-husband Jay."
At 24 weeks, Julie was diagnosed with polyhydramnios, a common complication of pregnancy where there's an "excessive amount" of amniotic fluid.
She says she was monitored closely by the City Hospital Foetal Care Unit, and was given an earlier due date.
But on December 5 2004, Julie could no longer "feel her baby."
"The Friday before, I could feel him kicking furiously," she said. "And the next day, there was nothing."
Julie was rushed to hospital, where she was told her baby had died. "It was a 'cord accident'," she said, fighting back tears.
The couple had to wait two days before delivering their son, 'Jak Cooke'.
"We had everything ready for the baby, so I just sat there rocking in a corner in the nursery. It was horrific to go into a maternity ward, where people are having live babies, to give birth to a dead one," said Julie, who works in homecare at Nottingham City Council.
But the couple were determined to try again. "Not to replace Jak," explained Julie. "But to give Jay a child of his own."
Soon after, the couple were pregnant again.
In November 2005, however, the "unthinkable" happened – Julie gave birth to a second stillborn baby boy.
She said: "Death – and especially children's death – is an uncomfortable and uneasy topic, but it's important for people to talk about it and acknowledge it.
"People can turn off the tele if they don't want to watch it, but we can't turn off our memories."
While the couple were eventually able to have a child together, they decided to take part in the film, Still Loved – a documentary exploring baby loss, set to be released on October 4, coinciding with Baby Loss Awareness month.
The film's director, Debbie Howard, of Sheffield said: "The parents were very happy to finally have a voice. When a baby dies, it's still a baby. It's still a child that is loved, cherished and wanted. Parents feel they can't talk about their baby because other people don't know how to cope with it."

Earlier this month, the Post ran a story about another couple who had suffered a pregnancy loss, and had opened a centre for bereaved parents.
Martin Sommerville, father of the stillborn baby, said: "For us, and for many parents we've met, a maternity ward was the last place we wanted to be, so we began to dream of an alternative.
"Zephyr's promises to be a place of compassion where families can receive much needed support to help them recover from their loss."
Still Loved will be screened on October 20 at 8pm at the Broadway Cinema.
​
Read article in The Nottingham Post here 


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Manchester Evening news article

10/27/2016

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Baby loss film Still Loved to premiere in Manchester
By Emma Gill
A 'groundbreakingly honest' documentary showing families coming to terms with baby loss is being premiered in Manchester.
Still Loved features seven families trying to cope with the grief that the loss of a baby brings.
Each year in the UK, more than 5,000 parents leave hospital without their baby and one in four pregnancies end in a loss.
Those behind the documentary say these deaths 'are hidden from society, stigmatised and silent' and the film aims to overcome the silence by 'showing parents’ stories of stillbirth and by providing an accessible, original and profound insight into the effects of the death of a baby'.
Still Loved is the debut feature from Debbie Howard, who has previously directed a string of short films that have screened at international film festivals and secured a number of prestigious awards.
She said: "Still Loved brilliantly gives a voice to all those affected, from bereaved mothers to often-overlooked fathers, many of whom open up about their experience for the first time ever on camera.
"This is a brave, inclusive and important film for all, not just those with first-hand experience of baby loss."
The documentary is supported by Tommy’s, the baby charity which funds research into stillbirth, miscarriage and pregnancy complications.
Dr Alex Heazell, director of Tommy’s Stillbirth Research Centre at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, said: "The subject matter of Still Loved is emotionally challenging - it should be, this is not a film to make the viewer feel comfortable.
"To make progress, we must break the silence, the stigma and the taboo that surrounds the death of a baby. Still Loved begins this process - it provides an accessible, original and profound insight into the effects of the death of a baby."
The release of the film coincides with Baby Loss Awareness Month throughout October, and International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day on October 15.
Debbie, founder of Big Buddha Films, said: “The parents were very happy to finally have a voice. When a baby dies, it’s still a baby.
"It’s still a child that is loved, cherished and wanted. Parents feel they can’t talk about their baby because other people don’t know how to cope with it."
Still Loved is on at AMC Cinema in Manchester at 7.30pm on Tuesday, October 4.
For tickets, costing £7.25, visit the website here .
For more details about Tommy's visit www.tommys.org .

​Read in The Manchester Evening News here
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The London Economic - 2 articles

10/27/2016

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Still Loved to show in london for baby loss awareness month

Jack Peat - 10 Oct 2016
​The powerful documentary Still Loved is set to be shown in London at the end of the month to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness Month which runs throughout October.
The film has been released in an effort to break the stigma that surrounds the death of a baby, which remains hidden from society and shamefully un-discussed.
Each year in the UK over 5,000 parents leave hospital without their baby. One in four pregnancies end in a loss.
Still Loved overcomes this silence by showing parents’ stories of stillbirth and by providing an accessible, original and profound insight into the effects of the death of a baby, brilliantly giving a voice to all those affected from bereaved mothers to often-overlooked fathers, many of whom open up about their experience for the first time ever on camera.
This is a brave, inclusive and important film for all, not just those with first-hand experience of baby loss.
Catch the film at The Picturehouse Central London on 24th October at 6:30pm, or at The Picturehouse Crouch End on 30th October at 8:00pm.
Read in The London Economic here 
​

​Still Loved: Dealing with the Loss of a Child as a Father

​By Chris Mates
As you may or may not be aware this week is Baby Loss Awareness Week. Involving twenty-one pregnancy and baby loss charities in the UK it’s a special opportunity to mark the brief lives of babies lost in pregnancy or soon after birth.
If I’m truly honest I wouldn’t have been aware of this event and the significance of the month ahead had it not been for my own personal experience. Two years ago my wife and I were full of joy and optimism having fallen pregnant after nearly three years trying to conceive. Our joy was intensified by the fact that we had avoided IVF treatment and had conceived naturally. At the same time like any expectant parents we were cautious in our approach to the nine months ahead. We were full of hope and believed that the three years of endless doctors appointments and the monthly realisation that we had failed to conceive were over. We thought we had overcome the hard part. How wrong we were.
On the 14th December at  7:00am my wife Jen went into what we now know was early labour. At the time I knew there was something wrong but had no idea that the day would develop as it did. Jen on the other hand was to later confess that deep down she knew what was about to happen.
Jen was approaching her 24th week and whilst I don’t feel the need to give you all the facts of what went wrong and why it went wrong I can tell you that it is the only day in my life that I can remember by the minute. At around 18:40 Jen gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. We named him Joshua Charles Mates.

Joshua was born breathing but after consultation with the Doctors they advised that he would not be strong enough to survive. We took the brave decision to let him go peacefully. Over the next ten minutes we cradled our son as he took his first and last breaths in this world, those moments were a mixture of emotions but the overriding feeling was one of pride and love for both Jen and the son that we had brought into this world together.
Our story has had many ups and downs since and I will freely admit that those two years have been the hardest that we have faced so far. Together and with the help of friends, family and one of the charities included in this month’s campaign we are at a point where we are moving forward whilst never forgetting. This all leads me to the main reason for writing about our experience.
Recently I was contacted by a good friend who works in the media industry who had a screening link to a documentary titled “Still Loved“. We had been made aware of this documentary and had already purchased tickets to one of the many screenings that are due to take place around the country to help raise awareness.
My overriding emotions when purchasing the tickets and having the link to the video were really rather mixed. Whilst I want to support the many charities associated with the week ahead I have to say I was apprehensive. With Joshua never far from our thoughts I wondered if watching the documentary would take me and in particular Jen back to those dark moments following the death of our son. As such in the days that followed I made excuse after excuse not to watch the documentary until I finally plucked up the courage to take a look.
I have to say I am genuinely pleased that I did. Although friends and family do their utmost to be there for you and give you the support that you need, unless you have experienced what we have you can never truly understand. Watching the film reminded me that there are other people out there that have gone through very similar experiences. The documentary tells the story of the events leading up to the birth and delves into the aftermath of losing a child and the different emotions a mother and father go through both together and on their own.
As a father I was particularly interested to see how the men coped with the situation and was pleasantly surprised to see that the documentary covered those feelings. I found a parallel with one particular guy who felt he put his emotions to one side to make sure that his wife was OK, his main focus was to help her through the grief. This to me seems a natural way of handling the situation. In making sure Jen survived it ensured that I would and that our relationship would remain intact, although I do appreciate that all situations are different and there can be no set rules on how to move forward.

As you would expect the documentary is emotional at times, whether you have experienced the loss of a child or not it doesn’t matter, watching the film will help raise awareness and give you an insight on how you can support those that have. Those who have experienced the loss of a child will find they are not alone in their experience and that there is help available to them through the various groups included in this campaign. The documentary touches on those who lost children years ago when the subject was even more taboo and showed it’s never too late to remember your lost child. The film offers a message of hope and whilst it’s important to note that not everyone will have a happy ending, it’s encouraging to see how couples move forward whilst remembering the child that they have lost.
This week sees many different initiatives and I would encourage everybody to get involved. Baby Loss Awareness Week finishes each year on October 15 with the global ‘Wave of Light’. October 15 is also International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and is recognised across the world. Last year we invited our close friends and families take part in the global ‘Wave of Light’ and their support in remembering our child and others really did mean a great deal to us as I’m sure it does other families. Simply light a candle at 7pm and leave it burning for at least 1 hour to join us in remembering all babies that have died too soon.
There are other ways to get involved which you can read about navigating to the link below:
http://babyloss-awareness.org/get-involved/
Please get involved.
Read in The London Economic here
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