Diary of a Ghost

Directed by Caroline Hajny | written by Maren Koenigs

produced by Sophia Ogilvie, Caroline Hajny

After the loss of her first love, a young woman keeps a diary to process her grief, blurring the line between reality and imagination.

ABOUT THE FILM

DIARY OF A GHOST was a Semi-Finalist at our very own Kino London Short Film Festival and won Honorable Mention at the BIFA Qualifying Brighton Rocks Film Festival, as well playing as an Official Selection at the also BIFA Qualifying Sunrise Film Festival Lowestoft. It was longlisted for the 225 Film Club, and longlisted for Best Director and Best England Film at The British Short Film Awards. Other festival highlights include: North East International Film Festival (BIFA Qualifying), Fastnet Film Festival, Fine Line Film Festival, Ealing Film Festival, and Australia Independent Film Festival.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

Born and raised in Germany, Carrie relocated to London to pursue a career in film, where she has been working across fashion, music and commercials since. Her previous ventures into fashion photography and documentary filmmaking continue to influence her aesthetic and approach to working with talent. Since then, her distinct style has led to collaborations with brands and artists such as Puma, Vinted, Dua Lipa, Red Bull Racing, Barbour and Amazon.

Her first short film ‘Last Dance’ premiered at the 2019 BAFTA qualifying Underwire Film Festival, where it was nominated for best U25 production. 'Diary of a Ghost', a short drama exploring grief and mental health, stars Genevieve Chenneour (Bridgerton), Alfie Noble and Mia Rodgers (The Sex Lives of College Girls). Her latest film, ‘Requirements’, a political science fiction drama set in a near future dystopia, is currently in post production.

Carrie has been curating film screenings at Sarah Kravitz Gallery and Southampton Film Week and served as a judge at Fine Line Film Festival in Serbia and the BIFA qualifying Sunrise Film Festival. She is also the co-founder of CHERRYPICK.

READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH Caroline

Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Tell us a bit about yourself and your filmmaking background.

Thanks so much for having me and Diary of a Ghost! I’m a German director based in London and I work across fashion, commercial and narrative projects. I started out as a camera trainee - a friend of mine took me under his wing and opened the door to the ‘real’ industry for me after I dropped out of uni. I always wanted to be a director, but working on set as crew was a great way to learn how the industry works, what different departments do, meet people and observe other directors work. I took whatever job came my way, a lot of running, PA’ing, assisting, BTS taking, you name it! Simultaneously I worked as a photographer shooting mainly fashion and live music - I enjoy photography a lot, and it helped me find a style I enjoyed, however for me it was always a tool to meet people: designers and artists I could hopefully direct a campaign or music video for. That’s how I built a reel which allowed me to move into commercials. I often get the sense that in the narrative world commercials are looked down on - for me they’ve been such an invaluable training ground! Over the years I’ve been able to build relationships with crew and actors, which allowed to shift focus on narrative projects.

Tell us about the genesis of Diary of a Ghost. Where did the idea come from and how did you develop that idea into the short that's now made its way out into the world?

Diary of a Ghost was written by my wonderful friend Maren Koenigs and was loosely inspired by her witnessing a close relative experiencing prolonged grief disorder. Her relative struggled to cope with the loss, slowly distancing themselves from the rest of the family and losing themselves in an imaginary world in which the person they lost was still around. Luckily, the family managed to intervene, but Maren took the idea and ran with it, asking herself what might happen to someone who doesn’t have a support network. The film was originally written to be a feature and Maren then turned it into a short!

What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making Diary of a Ghost and how did you overcome them?

I’m definitely not the first person to mention budget and finances here, but as a self funded project we definitely had to get nifty and call in a lot of favors to make this film happen. We almost lost our main location less than a week before the shoot due to my producer’s grandma’s superstitions, getting a bullet hole into a piece of glass might have involved some dodgy business (we’re not sure ourselves) and filling two notebooks with hundreds of diary entries for authenticity within a few days causes serious hand pain.
We shot the film over the course of 2 days, in 4 different locations - some in central London, but most in Surrey - so I’d say one of the biggest challenges was probably to fit everything into the days, getting everything we needed while still allowing some room for exploration and play and keeping the shooting hours sensible for our crew. Diary of a Ghost explores incredibly sensitive topics and as a director it’s so important to create an environment in which the actors can be vulnerable - however, when working on a super tight schedule that can be tricky.
For example, the second to last scene of Sage and Riley in the living room was shot in only an hour - it’s 6 or 7 minutes long and it’s the emotional climax of the film - but because we had some delays earlier in the day and we needed to leave the location, we had to somehow squeeze everything into the last hour of our final shoot day. It wasn’t easy to hide how stressed I was at that point, but I knew if I didn’t, it would sabotage the performances.

Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences and some of the festival circuit highlights and/or online release.

It’s been really lovely sharing our film with audiences - this was my first ‘proper’ festival run, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but ultimately we make films for the big screen, so it’s always special to see them projected in a cinema to an audience. It’s been lovely to see the passion and interest for short films - we’ve been asked such thoughtful questions at Q&As or after screenings about the story, themes and process of making the film, sometimes people have come out of the screening in tears and that feels like the ultimate compliment to me.

What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?

Your team is everything, so make sure you find a crew that shares your vision and enthusiasm for the film. Great HoDs can make or break your film and will hopefully elevate whatever it is you had in mind.