“Softly Inside” is a tale about a young man’s battle with depression and how it has affected his three best friends. The story is driven by the three perspectives of his (Efe) best friends and a series of questions by DCI agent Lawal.
“Softly Inside” was a film I felt like I had to make but didn’t exactly want to. Before this my films have always been funny! I was in the process of trying to write something funny again but life wasn’t so at the time. I kept hearing stories of people going through depression and a lot of the deaths that were happening around me were due to suicide.
I was afraid to write the film because it also meant revisiting a time when I was not in a good place myself. All of that changed when a good friend of mine attempted suicide. And no one knew.
I couldn’t help thinking “what if he actually went” “how would I’ve dealt with that” “what about his family. How would they’ve dealt with it”.
And that’s when I got the idea of how I were to tell this story.
Now the film was created on a zero to lunch money budget. That was only possible thanks to my amazing cast/friends who completely absorbed the story and its importance. It took a couple of months to get shot due to working around each other’s schedules. A lot of favours/Guerilla style film making was required. A friends place, a friends workplace a town hall ( still not sure of what we done was legal) and beautifully kind Turkish lady’s Café. Those were our locations all for a total cost of breakfast and lunch!
Now of course this made filming difficult at times because we couldn’t exactly call “SILENCE ON SET PLEASE”. However, for most of it. It was amazing. The film’s subject subconsciously created amazing discussions amongst us. It became therapy. It became a chance for us to open up and be absolutely naked about what we were going through in our private lives. Immense.
Editing! Okay. So I am my own crew – which will change (God I hope so … please) in the near future. This was the longest process of editing I’d done. I believe the subject matter made me a bit more precious about the film (nothing more devastating than editing in your dreams believing you’ve made progress and then waking up to find you’ve made none) but I weren’t obsessive at all …
Although I’ve entered the film to film festivals and all. My main goal is to just get this out there. The emotional response I’ve had has only motivated that. So far I’ve made plans to take it into schools and have that discussion about mental health.
So yeah. This is my film “Softly Inside”
Nelson Ekaragha
Director/Actor/Writer
Want your film project featured on Local Films? Fill out this form!