Dir: Gillian Wearing
UK 2010
With: Asheq Akhtar, Lesley Robinson, Dave Austin, James Baron, Lian Stewart, Simon Manley, Jerome Prince
Running Time: 85 mins

Recommended Certificate: 18

Self Made began with an advert in local papers. "Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian." From hundreds of respondents seven were chosen, and before making their film went through a method acting course which required role-play, primal grunting and some painful delving into the past.

This is at first glance a simple document of a process, more straightforward than you might expect from an artist’s debut feature. But as we progress the film asks increasingly discomforting questions about the desire to reveal ourselves and how we shape narrative out of our lives. Thanks to a surprising degree of trust and openness with their performers, Wearing and acting coach Sam Rumbelow create a hybrid of fact and fiction which is difficult to categorise, and difficult to forget.

Sam Rumbelow and Asheq Akhtar will be present to discuss the making of the film.

Tags: acting, documentary, fiction, Gillian Wearing, Sam Rumbelow