Expect Joan Feels the Same
UK, 2003
Director: Sophie Williams
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 4 minutes
Short synopsis
A touching and human document of love and loss as told candidly by two war widows.
Long synopsis
This tender film about wartime loves and losses consists of an interview with two elderly women, intercut with archive war footage. It is a touching but uplifting story of love, grief, strength and survival, focusing on the two women and their memories. Both women were married and then widowed during World War II. They talk candidly, with humour and strength, about their experiences and emotions. With reflections like, 'I was a bride, a widow and a mother all in the same year', Joan's companion tells of how no sooner had she married, than her husband was called to fight and, shortly afterward, was reported 'missing, believed dead'. She talks with her friend of the ongoing pain they both feel at having lost their husbands so young, and so suddenly. Both talk of their daydreams of them returning home eventually after recovering from amnesia, 'like in the films', and the dreams they have in which their husbands are still alive. Touching but not indulgent, it is an honest and unpretentious film portray.
Background information
About the film
I Expect Joan Feels the Same was made as part of Williams' final year at university and has since been screened in cinemas across the country as part of the Bird's Eye View 3: UK Winter Tour. The film was also nominated for the 2003 Royal Television Society Award for best student film (factual), as well as being included in the Big Issue Film Festival the following year.
About the film-maker
Sophie Williams graduated from Bournemouth University with a first class honours in TV production. She hopes to continue making character-based films, with particular interest in the role documentary filmmaking can play as oral history. Since completing I Expect Joan Feels the Same Williams has made 316 Neoprene, a documentary about Cornish surfers.
Teaching materials and additional materials
The teaching materials have been developed by practising teachers to provide a springboard for your own work with your students. Feel free to use and adapt them appropriate to your students' needs.
The additional materials, provided by the film-makers, can be used to develop your work with the film and deepen students' understanding of the process of film-making.
