Festival Honours
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Winner
Best Screenplay
Dam Short Film Festival Nevada, USA · 2021
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Winner
Best International Short
Anthem Film Festival South Dakota, USA · 2021
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Winner
Best Short Film
Festival Internacional de Cine Cannábico Buenos Aires, Argentina · 2025
Festivals & Screenings
- FICC - Festival Internacional de Cine Cannábico, Buenos Aires, Argentina (WINNER: Best Short Film Longer Than 5 Minutes)
- Omeleto, USA (Public Online Release)
- BFI Film Academy Film Festival, Sheffied, UK
- Deep in the Heart Film Festival, Texas, USA
- Landshut Short Film Festival, Bavaria, Germany
- Bute Street Film and Art Festival, Luton, UK
- Poppy Jasper International Film Festival, California, USA
- Crystal Palace International Film Festival, London, UK
- Magnolia Independent Film Festival, Mississippi, USA
- Hamilton Film Festival, Ontario, Canada
- Newport Beach Film Festival, California, USA
- SENE Film, Music & Arts Festival, Rhode Island, USA
- Exit 6 Film Festival, Basingstoke, UK
- Anthem Film Festival, South Dakota, USA (WINNER: Best International Short)
- Indy Film Fest, Indiana, USA
- Dam Short Film Festival, Nevada, USA (WINNER: Best Screenplay)
Production Stills
Why We Made This Film
Individuals who require cannabis to treat medical conditions are among the most vulnerable in society. The law is supposed to protect these people, but due to outdated prohibition laws, these are sadly the very people who are being prosecuted and vilified. We wanted to tell this story to highlight this reality to a wider audience with the aim of invoking feelings of injustice and making the viewers ask "is this right?".
The film is not an advocation of the use of cannabis, but an exploration of societal attitudes towards it; explored using Rhea’s journey and highlighted by the choices she is faced with as a consequence of continued cannabis prohibition.
Isn’t Medical Cannabis Legal Now?
In November 2018, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid introduced legislation which was supposed to make it possible for people to legally access cannabis through the National Health Service (NHS) for medical reasons. At the time, it gained a lot of press attention and campaigners hailed it as a historic victory. But sadly, it was a smokescreen. In the eight months that followed, only 12 prescriptions had been issued by the NHS.
The people who benefit the most from the change in legislation are patients who can afford expensive private healthcare. For everyone else, like Martin in the film, their only alternative is to break the law. Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the UK and offences pertaining to it carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Director’s Statement
I wanted to tell this story because I am passionate about medical cannabis and widening the conversation around it. I have personally witnessed transformations in loved ones where cannabis has aided their medical recoveries, and in a sadder case, witnessed the dying days of a friend made more comfortable and bearable as a result of its use. I believe that the prohibition of cannabis in the UK needs to be reassessed and attitudes need to change in ways similar to what’s happening in Canada and the United States.
The film’s genre is Drama. My artistic vision for the piece was for it to be firmly grounded in realism. This is because the illegal scenario of vulnerable people growing cannabis for medicine is real for thousands of people living in the UK and I wanted to convey this unfortunate reality as precisely that – reality.
Jack Curtis