Howl is a film that’s important to me for two reasons. The first is that our protagonist – the wonderful Daisy – finds the confidence to lean into her queer identity – something I only felt safe doing much later in life. The second is that it’s a coming-of-age drama located in the intense experience of being a teenage girl in a patriarchal world. As such, it aims to explore gender, sexuality and consent in a nuanced way. This wasn’t something I had access to as a teenager, and I think if I did, I might have been better equipped to initiate conversations on consent or navigate the entitlement of boys and men. At the very least, I would have been able to recognise when an abuse of power had occurred (something that took me many years to do). While Howl is a work of fiction, many elements of it are drawn from my own experiences growing up – experiences that I know are still happening today. And as a victim-survivor of sexual violence myself, I continue to grapple with how we might reconcile different ‘perspectives’ and how we might move from an individualist approach to a collective one, centred on care. I think perhaps, some of the answers to the problems we’re facing, lie there. Importantly, through that same lens, the film explores the complexities of female friendship and the ways in which women are taught to compete with one another. Despite this, I’ve found my friendships with women to be some of the most grounding and healing connections - I’ll never be able to thank the women in my life enough. In this way, Howl is really a love letter to your best friend. Thank you so much for watching (and reading). I hope it’s meant something to you too, and I hope it does to viewers, wherever they’re watching from.