On a quiet Tallinn afternoon, just hours after the world premiere of Think of England at the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Festival, I sat down with director Richard Hawkins and cinematographer Sarah Cunningham — a duo whose working chemistry is as vivid as the cinematic worlds they construct. The conversation unfolded like the film itself: brave, playful, and delightfully unpredictable.

MP: Before we get to the premiere, Richard — how do you see yourself as a filmmaker, and as an individual?

RH: Honestly? Badly defined. But the truth is simpler: I’m an adventurer. As a person and as a filmmaker, I love adventures. I don’t think I can say it any better than that.

SC: And that’s not just talk. One of the first things Richard told me was, “Be brave.” Every morning, he reminded me — if there are two choices, take the brave one. That set the tone for everything we did.

MP: Sarah, what is it like to work with a director whose instinct is to “be brave”? How did that shape your own identity as a cinematographer?

SC: It was liberating — and energising. Filmmaking is full of pressure: money, time, a big machine around you constantly asking, “Are you sure?” Richard protected a space where instinct mattered more than fear. I’ve always had an adventurer’s core — moving to unfamiliar countries, throwing myself into unknown environments — but as a cinematographer, especially as a woman, you’re often expected to be the safe pair of hands. Working with Richard allowed that adventurousness to come forward again. It wasn’t him “giving” me freedom — it was a collaboration, a shared authorship. We built the film’s grammar together.

MP: Richard, you mentioned bravery. On set, what does bravery look like in practice?

RH: The default instinct in filmmaking is to defend. You think you’re there to protect money, time, and reputation. But real filmmaking is the opposite — you must attack. You have to stay on the offensive creatively. And that is exhausting, but that’s where the life of the film is.

MP: Let’s talk about your working relationship. How would you describe the director–cinematographer partnership on this film?

RH: A director may pretend his closest relationship is with the actors. But in truth, the closest relationship is with the cinematographer. It’s a double act — like tennis doubles. If the communication breaks, everything collapses.

SC: We met first thing in the morning, last thing at night. It really did feel like a battle at times — but the kind where your ally is right beside you, matching your energy. That connection kept the film alive.

MP: How did your creative process begin? How did you build the film’s visual language together?

SC: Funnily enough, we discovered we live seventeen minutes apart in rural England . We’d sit with pencil and paper, sketching camera plans. Watch a clip from a 1940s film. Take a walk. Return to the table, re-draw everything. Eat iced buns. Then repeat. It was wonderfully old-school — and it allowed the visual language to emerge through conversation rather than prescription.

RH: Exactly. None of this was about executing a predetermined plan. We didn’t know exactly where we’d end up. That uncertainty was part of the design.

MP: The film shifts between stiff, classical black-and-white and intimate handheld sequences in colour. Why did you choose this dual grammar?

SC: From the start, we held the option to “jump the line” — to cross from the technicians’ perspective into the actors’ inner world. When we crossed it, everything changed: the camera’s rhythm, its grammar, its emotional texture. In black and white, we used the formal stiffness of 1940s cinema. In colour, we leaned into handheld vulnerability.

RH: It’s everything film school tells you not to do. Hard cuts between aesthetic worlds. Sudden emotional displacement. It feels “incorrect.” But that jarring leap is the emotional truth of the moment.

MP: Sarah, the 1940s aesthetic is unusually authentic. Tell me about the lighting choices.

SC: I limited myself to only direct lighting — no soft lights. Cinematographers in the 1940s worked with tungsten lamps and shadows, not infinite correction tools. Modern cinematography fears shadows, but shadows give images depth. So I embraced them — front lighting, direct lighting, sculptural lighting. It was radical, restrictive, and incredibly exciting. I wanted to work with the bravery of that era, not recreate it politely.

RH: What Sarah created is a true homage — not nostalgia, not imitation, but a reinvention of that period grammar.

MP: Editing such a film must have been a battlefield. What happened in the edit suite?

RH: Our editor is brilliant — and horrified. A lot of our material simply didn’t fit his trained sense of “correct editing.” Entire sections he initially removed were, for us, essential. So the edit became a negotiation: his conventional logic versus our deliberate anarchy.

SC: Editors guard comprehension, but life is full of things we don’t fully comprehend. Some mystery, some disorientation — that’s where cinema breathes.

MP: Now, Richard — why this story? Where is your journey in this film?

RH: I was drawn to the idea of collective identity — people who paused their former lives and became something else temporarily. COVID made me think about that: how we all gave up our previous selves for a strange suspended moment. The war was similar. These characters all come from previous lives put on hold. So the film became a collective story, not a personal one.

MP: And what finally convinces you — both of you — that the film’s bravery holds together?

RH: Being lost is part of any adventure that matters. If everything is safe and predictable, you may as well take the bus.

SC: Exposure is where the art is. Once you strip away modern armour — the soft lights, the safe choices — you’re vulnerable. But that vulnerability is exactly what makes the film breathe.

Think of England emerges as a work of bravery, dualities, risk, and deep creative kinship — a film born from instinctive trust, formal disruption, and a shared commitment to stepping across cinematic lines. It is, in every sense, an adventure — one undertaken together.

(c) Image copyright: Erlend Štaub