Aya is a young woman who lives with her best friend Alice in a cozy London flat, the same flat where she was recently sexually assaulted. When Aya’s relationship to her most sacred space and intimate parts of herself are wounded, she grapples with the grey area around consent. With her flatmate Alice’s quiet support, Aya starts to feel at home again.

Directed by Sydney Oberfeld and Apolline Pilley with a strong female crew, the script idea was based on their mutual experience and journey of healing.

Oberfeld and Pilley say: 'Our journey in writing It Happened at Home began fresh out of university. We sat in coffee shops brainstorming, knowing we shared the desire to speak to the same seed of an idea: healing in relation to sexual assault. Our script went through many phases, and we both, as young women and filmmakers, were going through our own processes of growth and healing. What we discovered is that friendship would lead the way, both personally and creatively. Quiet acts of compassion from those around us and closest to us go a long way in the process of healing. Sexual assault is detrimental to one’s relationship with the body—our first home. We chose to look further into the subject by observing what happens when the trauma takes place in one’s physical space and how it manifests, ultimately leading us to a story about rebuilding intimacy with oneself and with one’s space. Shot in one location on 16mm film, we knew fostering a safe environment and collaborating with an intimacy coordinator was integral to our process. Through cultivating relationships with cast and crew prior to the shoot, especially between our wonderful actors Harmony, Charlie and Isobel and our intimacy coordinator Abi, we were able to bring this nuanced and delicate story to life.'

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