An Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Penelope Lawson
We chat with Penelope Lawson about her short film, The Dinner Party, her experience founding her own production company, and fun cinema.

This documentary shows how cinema has been used very differently in three neighbouring African countries with different colonial heritages: Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar. Mozambique used cinema newsreels as a crucial propaganda tool after the Portugese colonisers left. Madagascar boycotted US movies, so its screens were dominated by French, Indian and Hong Kong films instead. But a few films managed to get made. The situation in Zimbabwe was the worst, except that alone of the three countries it possessed an efficient film laboratory.
We chat with Penelope Lawson about her short film, The Dinner Party, her experience founding her own production company, and fun cinema.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a film that is jarring within the first five minutes. Being at the edge of my seat from the very beginning made me feel both excited and frightened for what was to come, and it did not disappoint. Led strongly by Jennifer Lawrence as Grace, a woman trapped in the “American dream”, this film shows that society tells us what should make us happy. Many critics describe Die My Love as being about post-partem depression, but it is so much more. After moving to a secluded home with her husband Jackson, Grace finds herself in the throes of motherhood. Feeling isolated in her physical environment and her romantic relationship, Grace suffers psychologically. Lawrence brings a sense of rawness and humor to the screen that is often uncomfortable. Robert Pattinson adds to the discomfort as her loving, yet lost husband Jackson, who cares about his wife but does not know how to help her. Lynne Ramsay has presented a film that forces us to look at the realness of life, and what happens when the promise of what should make you whole fails.
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