Inside "Reparation": The Minds Behind a Haunting Story

Reparation

After the sudden death of his partner, Simon withdraws from the world, retreating into isolation in a remote caravan with only his older brother, Jake, as his support system. As grief tightens its grip, Simon finds himself slipping between memory and reality, where moments from the past begin to fracture, distort, and resurface in unsettling ways.

What begins as a search for healing slowly unravels into something far more ambiguous, as Jake’s presence blurs the line between comfort and control. As buried emotions rise to the surface, Simon is forced to confront not only his loss, but the deeper, darker truths hidden within his own mind. Reparation is a dreamlike psychological drama that explores the fragility of memory, the cyclical nature of trauma, and the uneasy space between care, dependence, and manipulation.

We are here with the creative forces behind Reparation, the minds from England who brought its vision to life.

Jordan Dean is the director of Reparation, a Hull-based filmmaker and photographer whose work explores emotion, memory, identity, and the unspoken spaces people often struggle to express. He is particularly drawn to stories that exist between realism and the dreamlike, blending psychological depth with visual storytelling.

With Reparation, Jordan shaped the overall vision of the film, from its tone and performances to its visual language and emotional rhythm. From the very beginning, his goal was to create something both intimate and unsettling, inviting the audience into Simon’s internal world rather than simply observing it from the outside.

John Lawless is an independent film producer, screenwriter, and actor, also based in Hull,

England. On Reparation, he served as producer and co-writer, while also taking on the role of Jake.

With over a decade of experience in screenwriting, John recently expanded into acting, which he has pursued seriously over the past two years. Reparation marks his first experience producing a film and bringing one of his scripted stories to life.

Matt Luty is the co-writer of Reparation, with a background in both amateur and professional creative writing spanning over 15 years. He has collaborated with John on multiple scripts over that time, contributing to the development of their shared storytelling voice.

During production, Matt was also present on set, supporting the team in various ways and, as he humorously notes, even helping with lunch, a testament to his hands-on and collaborative approach to the filmmaking process.

What inspired the creation of Reparation? When did the

idea for the story first begin to take shape?

John: After years of writing scripts for screen with Matt and not really knowing what to do with them, rather than trying to ‘get them made’ by independent parties, or entering writing competitions that are very saturated with incredible writers, we decided like many do to take the approach of making our own projects for screen instead.

With little funds and only a few contacts in film in our local area, we decided to write in a way that we hadn’t previously..

Usually we would write the story for screen driven by characters and the overall plot, whereas with Reparation, knowing we intended to shoot the project, we limited ourselves to writing in locations

we knew we had available to us for free: a kitchen, a field and a dirty old caravan!

Rather than this limiting us, it actually made us work harder and more creatively to make the story work within the parameters we had set ourselves as writers. All we had to do next was figure out the story!

Matt: As John mentioned, for this story we started with the resources we had available - he initially suggested the idea of a short involving the caravan in one of our regular writing sessions, and it evolved from there.

From the start we knew we wanted to create intrigue - why would someone be living in such an unpleasant space? What had gone wrong for them? From there the characters of Simon, Helen and Jake took shape, and the complications of their relationships followed.

Jordan: What drew me to Reparation was the emotional core of it — this idea of grief not being a clean or linear experience, but something that distorts memory, relationships and even your sense of self. The story really began to take shape when we started talking about how trauma can keep a person emotionally suspended, almost trapped between the past and the present.

What excited me about the project was that it wasn’t just interested in grief in a straightforward dramatic sense. It was exploring what grief does psychologically — how it can make someone vulnerable, how memory can become unstable, and how guilt and pain can reshape the way we see the people closest to us.

Jake and Simon portrayed John Lawless Charlie Blanshard

Jordan, in your director's statement you mention exploring

the complex relationship between memory and trauma. What

initially drew you to these themes?

I think I’m drawn to those themes because memory is never as reliable as we want it to be. We like to think of it as factual, but in reality it’s emotional, fragmented and often shaped by pain. Trauma complicates that even further. It can trap people in a moment, or force them to relive something in ways that feel almost physical.

As a filmmaker, that’s really rich territory because it gives you the opportunity to tell a story not just through plot, but through feeling, atmosphere and perception. With Reparation, I was interested in how grief and trauma can alter the emotional logic of a person’s world — how someone can be searching for truth, but be surrounded by memories and emotions that are constantly shifting under their feet.

Jake and Simon portrayed John Lawless Charlie Blanshard

The film has a very atmospheric and visually striking style. Can you tell us about the visual language and tone you wanted to create for this story?

I wanted the visual language of Reparation to feel haunted, intimate and emotionally subjective. Rather than approaching the story in a purely literal way, I wanted the audience to feel as though they were experiencing the world through Simon’s grief — where space feels emptier, time feels stranger, and small details carry emotional weight.

The tone was always about tension through atmosphere rather than overt spectacle. We leaned into isolation, stillness, shadow and negative space to create a sense of unease. I wanted the film to feel melancholic but also quietly threatening, as though something unresolved was always sitting just beneath the surface. The aim was for the visuals to hold both sadness and dread at the same time.

Your influences include filmmakers like David Lynch and Wong Kar-Wai. How did these inspirations shape the mood and storytelling of Reparation?

Those influences were definitely important, but more in spirit than imitation. From David Lynch, I’m inspired by the way he treats emotion and psychology as cinematic language — where mood, sound, silence and image can tell us as much as dialogue. His work gives you permission to let ambiguity and unease exist without over-explaining everything.

From Wong Kar-Wai, I’m always inspired by the emotional sensuality of his filmmaking — the way memory, longing and absence can be felt through light, colour, framing and rhythm. His films have this incredible ability to make emotional distance feel physical.

With Reparation, those influences helped shape an approach where the film could feel both

grounded and dreamlike — emotionally real, but filtered through grief and fractured perception.

Helen portrayed by Nathalie Holloway

Matt and John, you collaborated on writing the script together. What was your writing process like, and how did the two of you work together to develop the emotional layers of

the story?

John: The first thing to say is, despite the dark topics and tone of the film, we had a lot of fun writing this as we always do. Matt and I have been writing together for over a decade now, so along the way we have gained a good understanding of how the other works, and also what we both bring to the process. Personally, I feel I’m more of an ideas person, making situations more dramatic and writing interesting characters, but Matt has a real talent for really selling the story and allowing the reader to visualise exactly what we want them too. I feel we really balance each other out as a writing team.

As we always do with any project, we start by putting the bulk of our time into in-depth characters bios and a story treatment before we even put any dialogue down on a script. If we know the characters well enough and the key beats of the story, then the bulk of the work is done and the script then almost writes itself.

After that we go through several rewrites with time away from the script in between, until we get to a point we are happy to share it. In this case, with our director Jordan.

When Jordan came on board he really helped us dig deeper into the script once he shared his vision, and really enhanced some of the ideas we already had to squeeze as much drama, emotion and intrigue as possible within the parameters of the budget, shoot times and locations we had set.

Matt: Practically, we meet once a week to collaborate, usually virtually. It's not always easy to find the time given our work and family lives, but it's a passion we share and we're both committed to making it happen.

In those sessions, like John said, we're not necessarily writing dialogue or getting scenes on the page, more often we'll pore over the characters, develop their backstories, establish their environment, their world.

Once we're both satisfied that we understand our characters, their situation, and the broad strokes of the story, we start plotting more intricately.

Writing in this way works well for us and we've known each other long enough that we're not afraid to (constructively!) challenge each other's ideas.

One area we struggled with in the past was knowing when we're done. There's always a temptation to go back and tweak a line or add more actions, but a key tenet of our work now is to consider ; "is this better than it was before?". Generally if we both feel a change makes an improvement, we add it in. If not, we scrap it (or park it for another project).

John, you take on three major roles in this project as

producer, writer, and actor. How did you balance those

responsibilities during production,

John: With me taking on three roles on the production, Jordan and I knew we had to be very prepared in every department. I generally have the ability to spin a few plates at once, but from a production point of view we made sure we hired the right artists for the right roles both in front and behind the camera, who were experienced on productions like this. This allowed me to trust them to do their roles without me having to chase people around!

From a writing point of view, Matt, Jordan and I spent a lot of time developing the script to a point we were happy with, but the real prep came from rehearsals with Jordan and our lead character Simon (Charlie Blanshard - who is fantastic in this film)

These rehearsals, along with my own character prep in the background, allowed us to explore the characters dynamics, the world, and finesse any script or story points well ahead of the shoot so that when we were rolling I knew the world, my character, their motivations and could fully focus on my performance.

We also had an exceptional Assistant Director (Callum Ahmed) who ran the set and made my life very easy!

The film explores themes of grief, memory, and psychological trauma. How important was it for the story to portray these emotions in a grounded and authentic way?

Jordan: It was hugely important. Even though the film has a stylised atmosphere and a

psychological edge, none of that works unless the emotional truth underneath it feels honest. We never wanted grief or trauma to feel decorative or exaggerated for effect. The audience has to recognise something human in it.

For me, authenticity comes from taking the characters’ emotions seriously and resisting the urge to simplify them. Grief is messy, contradictory and often difficult to articulate. It can create vulnerability, anger, confusion, numbness — sometimes all at once. We wanted the film to honour that complexity rather than reduce it to one clear emotional note.

John: It was a huge part of the story and the world these characters lived in, but for completely different reasons and points of view.

The interesting thing for me as a writer Reparation, as well as portraying the antagonist, was the why? Sadly, in life, most people will experience multiple forms of trauma, and often, at key points in their life like childhood for example. These events can really start to form what that person becomes, or has the potential to become. Trauma manifests in very different ways for different people, so it was important that we didn’t shy away from showing these themes, but equally important that we portrayed these themes in a way that felt real to the characters and the audience, without saying what they are doing is good, or ok.

John, your character Jake carries a lot of emotional complexity. He appears supportive at first, but the story slowly reveals deeper motivations. How did you approach portraying such a layered character?

John: We decided as a team very early on in the process that we didn’t want Jake to be an over the top, overtly menacing caricature villain that is often seen in film and TV. Especially with only a short amount of time on screen not just to tell the story, but to reveal Jake’s motivations and reasoning for his actions too, So I really wanted to go with a ‘less is more’ approach. Some of my favorite film performances are when the characters are still and saying very little, which I definitely tried to tap into. It also lets the audience make their own opinions on the character and the story, rather than being spoon fed what we want them to think or feel. Jake is physically more dominant than Simon, especially given Simon’s state when we meet him and his journey throughout the film. So I decided to approach Jake with a lot more physical restraint than you might expect from this type of character - it felt like the more interesting choice.

Everything Jake does in the film, or before the film even starts, for better or for worse, is out of love for his brother, so I felt it was important that Jake be visibly vulnerable and isolated throughout the film, which is ultimately what redeems him, too.

The relationship between Simon and Jake is the emotional core of the film. How did you work together as a team to build that dynamic and tension throughout the story?

Jordan: That dynamic was absolutely central, so a lot of the work was about making sure the relationship felt layered from the beginning. It couldn’t be played as one thing too early. The tension needed to emerge gradually, so that the audience is constantly reassessing what they’re seeing and how much they trust Jake.

As a team, that meant being very precise about tone and performance. We talked a lot about

restraint — about what not to show too soon, and how to let the emotional unease build through behaviour, pauses and subtle shifts in energy rather than obvious signposting. The relationship works best when it feels believable and emotionally lived-in first, because that gives the later revelations much more weight.

John: That dynamic was absolutely central, so a lot of the work was about making sure the

relationship felt layered from the beginning. It couldn’t be played as one thing too early. The tension needed to emerge gradually, so that the audience is constantly reassessing what they’re seeing and how much they trust Jake.

Matt: Simon and Jake are brothers, so they've known each other their entire lives. We're only seeing a brief, albeit pivotal, part of their story. We wanted it to feel grounded, and we didn't want to spoon-feed the audience their entire history. It was important that the dialogue remained natural, giving just enough away for viewers to fill in the blanks. John and I worked on this during early script development, and Jordan helped realise this during our re-write sessions, leaning on his experience of directing to ensure the actors could deliver our intentions.

The isolated caravan setting creates a strong sense of loneliness and psychological tension. Was that choice connected to the aftermath of Simon’s grief and emotional isolation?

Jordan: Yes, very much so. The caravan wasn’t just a backdrop — it was an extension of Simon’s inner state. I wanted the setting to feel cut off, exposed and intimate all at once. There’s something about that kind of enclosed, isolated space that naturally creates vulnerability, and for this story it mirrored the way grief can make the world feel smaller and more suffocating.

It also helped create a sense that there was nowhere to escape to, emotionally or physically. That was important because the film is really about confrontation — with memory, with guilt, with the past, and with another person whose presence becomes increasingly difficult to read.

John: Absolutely! When Matt and I first started creating the story, knowing we wanted to utilise the old caravan as a main setting, it really got us thinking and discussing the whys. Why would someone choose to stay here? What have they been through? What’s stopping them leaving? The caravan almost felt like an additional character in the film- a real physical symbol of isolation, grief and trauma for both Simon and Jake.

One of the most striking elements of the film is how the audience’s perception of Jake gradually shifts as the story unfolds. How did you approach building that transformation

without revealing too much too early?

Jordan: That was all about calibration. We wanted Jake to feel convincing enough early on that the audience would accept him at face value, but with just enough subtle tension underneath that, in retrospect, the warning signs were always there.

The key was resisting anything too overt. If you push too hard too early, you lose the slow-burn tension. So instead, we focused on small choices — tone, body language, moments of silence, the way scenes are framed, the emotional temperature between the characters. It was about allowing the audience’s perception to shift organically rather than forcing a twist. Ideally, the reveal feels surprising in the moment but inevitable afterwards.

John: I think because we had so much knowledge as a team on these characters and the world we built, come shoot time it became a lot easier to show different sides of Jake in these situations in a more subtle and less vocal way. As the film progresses, despite Jake’s actions intensifying, as we reveal more about him and his story, arguably the audience has more to relate to with him, which was an interesting idea to play with.

Matt: The changing perception of Jake is something John and I intended from the earliest iteration of the script. We wanted the audience to make assumptions about him, and then have those assumptions challenged throughout, so it's very encouraging that this is recognised by the viewers.

The ending leaves the audience with a powerful moral dilemma when Jake asks Simon to kill him, yet the film never shows what happens next. What drew you to leaving that

moment unresolved? Will Simon be revengeful against his brother? Will he decide not to kill him and let him sit in his mistakes forever?

Jordan: What interested me about that ending was that the real question isn’t simply what happens next, but what that choice would cost Simon either way. For me, the power of the ending comes from leaving the audience inside that moral and emotional tension rather than resolving it for them.

If we show the outcome, the film becomes more definitive and, in a way, narrower. By leaving it unresolved, the audience has to sit with the same unbearable question Simon is facing. Does revenge offer release? Does mercy? Is either option really freedom? I was much more interested in that lingering emotional dilemma than in giving a clean answer.

John: Due to the chaotic nature of the film, its non-linear story telling and unreliable flashbacks, we really wanted an ending that didn’t feel nicely tied up, to allow the audience to make up their own minds. Not just on what the ending might be, but what do the characters deserve at the end of it all?

We also wanted the audience wanting to know more come the end of the film, about what happened to both of these characters and their relationship.

Matt: Similar to avoiding exhaustive exposition, we were keen to avoid providing the audience with all the answers, we're trusting them to come to their own conclusions. Personally, when I watch a film, I like considering what could happen next - it gives me a closer connection to, and ultimately a greater enjoyment of, the story.

I know what I think happened to Jake and Simon, and I'd be very excited to hear what others think.

I thought it was a great choice, definitely not usual and it makes the short more immersive for the audience, it let's it linger for a while.

Is there a fun fact or an interesting behind the scenes moment from the making of Reparation that audiences might not know?

Jordan: One of the funniest things about making Reparation is that the film is incredibly tense and bleak, but the set absolutely wasn’t. That was a very conscious choice. When you’re working with heavy themes, the last thing you want is for everyone to stay emotionally stuck in that all day, so we made sure that as soon as the camera cut, the set felt light, safe and actually fun to be on. So between these really intense scenes, there’d be loads of laughing, joking, checking in on each other, and the usual slightly chaotic reality of low-budget filmmaking. I always think that’s one of the strangest and best parts of film sets — on screen it looks haunting and emotionally loaded, and just out of frame there’s a group of people trying not to laugh and making sure everyone’s okay.

The irony is that creating that relaxed, supportive atmosphere off camera actually helps you get to the darker stuff on camera, because people feel safe enough to go there.

John: During the scene with the fire barrel in which my character strongly encourages Simon to burn the last of his partner's items to gain closure, Charlie Blanshard, playing Simon, was wearing A LOT of hair spray. As the fire naturally got bigger as the scene went on there was a genuine fear that he was going to burst into flames right next to me. I could feel my eyebrows getting hotter and hotter, so i can;t imagine how he was feeling! Another fun fact is that originally the ending was very different! I won't say what it is, but let’s just say Jake revealed one final surprise to Simon during the kitchen scene..

Matt: Depends on your definition of fun, but earlier drafts of the script had subtle references to Jake possibly being a cannibal. Rightfully so this idea was binned, but that character trait lasted a lot farther into the development than any of us would care to admit.

That’s incredible, it really feels like it could have taken the film in a completely different direction...

Finally, looking back at the project, is there anything about Reparation or its themes that we haven’t touched on that you would like audiences to know?

Jordan: I think the main thing I’d want audiences to know is that Reparation isn’t really interested in easy answers. It’s a film about pain, guilt, memory and the emotional consequences of what people do to one another, but it’s also about ambiguity — about how difficult it can be to find clarity when you’re inside trauma.

More than anything, I hope audiences connect with the emotional experience of the film. Even though the story moves into dark and psychologically complex territory, it begins with something very human: loss, vulnerability, and the need to make sense of something that may never fully make sense. That tension is really at the heart of the film.

John: Being based in Hull, East Yorkshire, a very working class, and creatively under resourced and under utilised area in the film industry, it’s very easy for productions to look past us in terms of talent in the area.

One of our goals for Reparation was to have a cast and crew made up of 90% Hull creatives, which we achieved. Our cast was fully made up of actors from our local acting class; Screen Acting East Yorkshire and an almost fully Hull affiliated crew which is a great achievement. Hopefully this film can contribute to the growing film industry in Hull and shine light on the talent that’s based there.

Matt: For me the theme of the lengths people will go for a cause, or in this case a love, that they truly believe in, no matter how twisted it might be, is fascinating. Jake absolutely does love Simon, and in his mind he's doing the right thing even though morally it's reprehensible.

We would like to thank the Reparation team for sharing their insights and giving us a closer look into the creative process behind it. Their openness and passion for storytelling shine through both on and off screen, making this journey into their world all the more compelling.

THEIR LINKS:

NEVER DULL PRODUCTIONS - INSTAGRAM

REPARATION on INSTAGRAM