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“Malia Will Now Always Be the Right Location for the Film” | Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex
How to Have Sex, courtesy of Sundance Institute Films are made of and from places: the locations they are filmed in, the settings they are meant to evoke, the geographies where they are imagined and worked on. What place tells its own story about your film, whether a particularly challenging location that required production ingenuity or a map reference that inspired you personally, politically or creatively?
How to Have Sex is set in European party town. Teenagers from all over the UK flock to various Mediterranean towns. It’s funny that we recreate our culture somewhere hot. Pints and full English breakfasts. These towns are all fairly similar. They exist outside of the local culture. Like a mini Britain on sea.
When I was writing the film, I had such a strong image of Magaluf (in Majorca, Spain) in my mind. Magaluf was the party town that I remember most vividly out of all the trips I took when I was 16/17/18. So naturally we scouted there first. Whilst on the scout I had an almost out of body experience watching teenagers repeat the nights that we had once lived. It felt like a time warp. I was transported back to how it felt to be on holiday for the first time without our parents. The elation, the ability to keep going, the hangover.
When it became impossible to shoot in Magaluf I was quite heartbroken. Magaluf had these huge cruise ship like hotels with corridors that ran forever and ever. Out the window all you could see was other hotel windows. It was never ending. It was dense.
Due to politics we started to look at Malia (in Crete, Greece) to replace Magaluf. I was worried it was too nice. The hotels were cute, and the mountains made it almost picturesque. But in hindsight it was a bit of a blessing. I think the film would have been much bleaker had it been set in such an oppressive place. There would be no relief. Your brain would easily understand that what Tara is experiencing could be happening to multiple people each night. Instead, the first half of the film can offer some lightness.
I think it’s funny how films are these evolving beasts and as you make decisions along the way they chop and change, and it forms its own unique identity. Malia will now always be the right location for the film. It will always be the backdrop to lots of our first feature film experiences.
There is something really special for me in redefining the space.
See all responses to our annual Sundance Question here.
