MEMOIR OF A VEERING STORM

Synopsis

It is a morning in September. A storm is about to break. A mother drives a girl to school in the morning and picks up a woman at the end of the school day. Anna, a fifteen-year-old girl, sneaks out of school, and, with the help of her boyfriend, they visit a hospital. There, she has to face an event that will jolt her into adulthood.

Director's comment

I started writing MEMOIR OF A VEERING STORM after a friend of mine told me of a similar experience at the tender age of fifteen, when his girlfriend got pregnant by accident. With the help of an adult friend, the two kids visited a hospital in order for the girl to have an abortion. All this happened on a normal weekday between her mother escorting her to and from school as usual.
I was deeply moved by this real-life event and by the cinematic possibilities of this circular story. I also had had such an experience of a termination at a young age. In the film, my friend’s story is amalgamated with my own subjective experience.
The space of these eight school hours becomes the greatest void of all: a gap of understanding and communication pervades both the family and the social environment. In the last couple of years we are all witness to the struggle of women in countries like Poland, Argentina, Hungary and lately Greece, to protect their inalienable right to self-determination through their reproductive rights, expressed by the motto ‘my body, my choice’. Something that shows us that both bodily autonomy and freedom of choice are still in question even today when we take such things for granted.
Be that as it may, I chose not to dwell on the social impact a story like that has. I wanted the Memoir of a Veering Storm to observe and depict the effect of such an event on the psyche of a particular young girl who decides to face an abortion, with the company of her same age boyfriend, on the day that a Mediterranean cyclone is closing in on the town.
The story, unfolding within the timeframe of a day, follows this girl and shares her journey and her feelings. It portrays, in a stark but understated way, a coming-of-age story. A journey that many women amongst us have lived through.

Film Info