film

How Does it Feel? is a hybrid documentary, directed by Ames Pennington and produced by Archie Sinclair, that uses performance as a tool for a newly reunited working-class family to share their stories and discover new ways of understanding themselves and each other. It follows the filmmaker’s mum, De – a warm-hearted woman given up for adoption at birth – who located her three biological siblings at the age of 57 and then moved to Derby to be with them. Five years later, the family embarks on another emotional journey, experimenting with performance for the first time. Initially envisioned as a bridge between the filmmaker, undertaking their most personal and ambitious project yet, and their family, who were entirely new to creative processes, the act of performance evolves into a unique and central theme of the film.