We Are Fireflies Official Winning Finalist for best animated short at Raindance Film Festival…

We Are Fireflies is a graphic autobiography of a young woman’s experience of violence and silence. The film was screened at the Curzon Soho on 29 October as part of the Raindance Film Festival’s programme. The festival is the largest independent film festival in the UK and held its 31st festival in 2023. The festival is officially recognised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences USA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and the British Independent Film Awards.  

The film has also been selected and screened at The London International Animation Festival, Change The Script Festival in Canada, New Orleans International and Paris Lady MovieMakers Film Festival.  It also featured in the Summer Open exhibition at StudioKIND in Braunton, UK.

Sophie graduated with a 1st class honours degree in illustration at University Westminster, her dissertation explored the role of graphic autobiography as a unique medium for acknowledging, understanding and expressing trauma.

“Inspired by leading research in intergenerational trauma, I wanted to express the complexity of the lived experience. I used chalk and charcoal illustrations and an original underscore to express the depths of the psyche”. ‘We Are Fireflies’ tells a deliberately fragmented and ambiguous narrative - since that is what trauma is like - and documents a mother and daughter’s own experience of violence and silence.