My Happiest Project: Raine Allen-Miller

Throughout October, we’re looking at the subject of happiness, and asking creatives to tell us about the projects they’ve most enjoyed working on. Here, director Raine Allen-Miller talks to CR about making her first short film, Jerk, and how it helped her hone her craft

I wrote Jerk when I was going through a period of depression and anxiety, and I’d just decided that I wanted to be a full-time director. (I used to be a creative, but it wasn’t for me.)

The film is about a guy who’s in his 70s, he’s from the Windrush generation, he suffers from depression, and he works in a Jamaican food shop. It’s about toxic masculinity in the black community – specifically the Caribbean community – and it’s also about loneliness and older people. 

I guess it was [inspired by] combination of my own experiences with mental health issues, and wanting to make something that represented the West Indian community. I also really wanted to make something that was just mine, that I could [make] without any other influences and see what happened when I did that.