MA Film graduate Valentina Garrett recently won three NAHEMI National Student Film Awards for her final project at London College of Communication, Madonna Mia.
Valentina graduated from MA Film at LCC in 2024, with her graduation film Madonna Mia, a short film that delves into themes of religious guilt and personal identity. Drawing inspiration from her own childhood experiences within a Catholic environment, the story follows a young woman in Italy as she struggles with shame and desire while exploring her sexuality within a deeply religious environment.
Valentina credits the film’s success to the collaborative spirit of her team, highlighting the vital roles of editor Sabrina, producer Maddie, production designer Chiara, and cinematographer Matt. Their collective efforts earned Madonna Mia three awards at the prestigious NAHEMI National Student Film Awards, winning the Cinematography Award and runner-up awards for Performance and Overall Best Undergraduate Film.
We spoke with Valentina, as she reflects on the making of the film, from the Vatican banning the script to tragically losing her home and the film’s footage in the LA wildfires. Valentina also discusses her time at LCC and forming the creative partnerships that shaped the project and continue to shape her career post-graduation.
The film evolved from an idea I had five years ago that stemmed from the real story of me at six-years-old having a panic attack during my first confession. What felt like a funny moment evolved into thinking about what a young person would feel guilty about, and then it took off from there.
The story of Madonna Mia started to reveal itself to me after my first development session with Klaus Fried, our writing and editing lecturer at LCC. We were talking about religious guilt, and the feeling of wanting to keep an element of yourself private, even from an ‘all knowing God’, and it turned into a young woman feeling guilty about exploring her own body and sexuality.
Madonna Mia would not have come to life the way it did without everyone’s hands putting fingerprints on the project.
Our editor, Sabrina, was also our casting agent and location scout, as well as holding at least six other uncredited roles on the project.
Maddie, our producer and first AD, was there day in and day out, ten hours a day on the phone, figuring out how to get us and our equipment to Italy – and saved us £800 in carnet fees.
Chiara, our production designer, constructed the confessional booth in Milan, hand–made over 100 Virgin Mary figurines (and a number of other items), and did the entire costume design.
Mafer and Aayushi helped with art direction and production design, bringing the world to life and teaching me so much about intentionality in filmmaking.
Matt, our Director of Photography, analysed the script to implement storytelling in each frame – whether it be framing our characters with two–thirds headspace or using the aspect ratio to create a claustrophobic, ‘God is watching’ feeling. He was also the most minimalist DP, which gave us confidence that we could go to Italy with bare–bones equipment.
Punya, our sound designer, built a soundscape from details like church bells and insects, and during production Gaspard jumped in last–minute as a one–man boom operator and mixer.
The actors – Beatrice (Lena), Angelica (Gaia), and Cristina (Marta) – also helped me with the script, which allowed for a beautiful collaboration that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible, since this was filmed in a Roman dialect (Romancesco) that I wasn’t familiar with.
I grew up attending Catholic school and always had a problem with queer and trans people feeling excluded from an environment where it was preached that “everyone is welcome.”
I grew up in a very liberal environment that allowed for questioning, still, I wanted to put a queer character at the forefront of the church – but make it a fun story – especially in Italy, where it's still a heavily taboo topic. In fact, our script was banned by the Vatican, which meant we weren’t allowed to film in any church within the municipality of Rome.
The hardest part of the entire process was getting a church to let us tell this story the way we had envisioned it from the beginning.
The hardest part for the main crew was preparing everything without any location scouting, in-person rehearsals, or a guarantee that the camera would last through production. We didn’t have the security blanket of the university – if someone didn’t come to set, we were down a person and had to figure it out.
Getting a first unit local camera crew to support Matt (DP) was a big weight off our shoulders – thanks to the hard work and grace of Jacopo, Susi, and Carlo, who got gritty with us and worked five days on set for free. Both Matt and Chiara (PD) had to go in blind, and casting secondary characters locally was more difficult than expected.
Our guardian angels were Sabrina and the Rosu family–without them we’d have had no main house location and no Nonna (yes–her real Nonna is in the film!).
The buzzer–beater moments were securing the church location (confirmed the day before shooting) and the piazza permits, which we got on our final day. We were also lucky Chiara and her dad Santino had the foresight to build a confessional – one of our best decisions, and one of my personal favourite scenes.
There were plenty of unexpected challenges along the way – like the night our water went out and we had to shower with bottles, or when Mafer and Chiara accidentally burned the prop risotto overnight, filling the house with the smell of gas (luckily, no carbon monoxide poisoning!).
This film came together as much as possible during prep, and we happened to make our own luck – with a big hand from the village that supported us in Italy!
The reason I applied to MA Film was because I appreciated how it was divided into specialties, and that there were people passionate about all aspects of filmmaking. The best part of this project was the main crew, and the people that got added along the way, who truly elevated the experience. I felt like my classmates were my teachers. I learned so much from watching everyone’s process in prep – and the same goes for production and post.
What made our film a ‘success’ (something we’re proud of and look back fondly on) was that we chose each other. The tone set from the start was: “What do you want out of this?” There was no singular voice that overruled. The conversations we had when attaching people to the pitch were always about: What can each role get out of being a part of a film like this?
It was a privilege to get the greenlight from our professors, but the real privilege was having my friends choose Madonna Mia as their major project.
The final film was shaped by Sabrina taking the footage and not being afraid to chop it up, reorganise scenes, or eliminate what wasn’t serving the ‘North Star’ of the story. Trusting people's imprints and their storytelling abilities was the only way to finish it and be happy with it.
The people you work with at LCC will hopefully be the ones you call when you want to make your next project. I just want to convince them all to work with me again one day!
I’m incredibly proud that we won the cinematography award because Matt is the best cinematographer not just with what he captures (that's obvious!) but how he made our actors feel. The awards feel symbiotic, despite the language barrier between the actors and our crew, Matt made our actors feel so incredibly calm and had a level of emotional vulnerability that allowed them to bring their own vulnerability. It will be the first of many more awards for them, beyond Madonna Mia.
Madonna Mia is still in the festival run, but you can follow us on Instagram @madonnamiafilm and we will be posting updates there. We'll put the video on Vimeo once it's allowed, or you can send me a cheeky message, and I can send you a private link. You can find my work also on Instagram @heyitsvalpal for now.
Matt, Sabrina and I are working on a short documentary that will begin its festival circuit in the upcoming year, about Sherry Vine, a drag queen celebrating her 60th birthday with a world tour. They, along with the rest of the Madonna Mia crew, are collaborating with more and more filmmakers based in London and are continuing to make shorts and working in the film industry there.
I am also working as a director's assistant and am excited to connect my London friends to more crew members in their specialties that are LA and Hollywood based. The entertainment industry is hard to break into, and the moments of levity and mutual support come from friendships that you cultivate along the way.
The MA Film course feels like a parallel universe. I got to explore and build confidence as a director; I could not be more grateful.
When I got back to LA in December, I lost my home to the LA wildfires just a week later, along with my hard drive that held all our work from the past year. I felt so devastated. It was the one thing I wished I had grabbed. After losing it, I had to have a conversation with myself that I am not my portfolio and my worth comes from within, not from my work.
My friends from LCC were the ones who got together, bought me a new hard drive, put back all the footage on it, and shipped it to me. They were the people that had my back during the most catastrophic event of my life. That was the best thing out of the past year in London. I love them and will cherish our year together for the rest of my life! I’ll always be their biggest cheerleader and can't wait to see the work they will go off and do.
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