Still Water
A year with a third-generation hawker deciding whether to keep the stall alive.
Still Water followed one hawker over fourteen months as he weighed whether to pass on a stall his grandfather started. Documentary is the discipline that taught me the most as a director: you cannot script trust, you have to earn it, and the best moments arrive only after the camera has stopped being interesting.
I shot it almost entirely alone, with available light, so the subject would forget I was there. The film has no narrator and no music until the final scene. Everything you feel comes from time spent and choices held.
When a brand or a family wants a real story told without gloss, this is the register I work in. It is slower and more demanding than a commercial, and it produces something that outlives a campaign.
What this engagement included
- Long-form access building and research
- Solo observational cinematography over months
- Verité edit with a sound-led final scene
- Festival master and a short broadcast version
- Subtitled deliverables for screening
