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Views from a micro-budget filmmaker - Sophia Ralston. A Q&A from Ben Wilkinson from the Spirit of Independence Film Festival about her new film The Red World (2020)

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SHOWREEL 2015-2021

Roller Coaster through the Clouds - a Short Film about ADHD (2015)
35:17

Roller Coaster through the Clouds - a Short Film about ADHD (2015)

This short film about ADHD tells the story of experiences I myself and people around me have made, who suffer from ADHD. This was my high school graduation project and it received not only top marks but also awarded one of the best projects of the year. I wanted to address people who knew very little about ADHD, affected or not, and show how appallingly society and the school system deal with the topic (of course with exceptions). What I portrayed in this film is merely what I have experienced myself. I have since heard stories a lot more horrible. It is impossible to pack all I wanted to say about ADHD into 35min but this is my first attempt. If you suffer from ADHD and/or want to know more, please contact me and I would love to talk about it. I do ask you NOT to contact me with messages like "Drugs are bad, you should except who you are." or "ADHD doesn't exist, it's a label invented by the drug industry" especially if you don't have the syndrome yourself. In the film, Alex, the protagonist in this story, takes Ritalin whereas her friend Ruby doesn't. I am aware that Ritalin has very different effects on different people. In this short film I am most definitely NOT praising Ritalin or any kind of drug designed to help with the syndrome (such as Adderall or Concerta), I am merely defending its general use and saying it can in some cases help you a lot (which it did in my personal case). Hence the two characters: for some it works, for some it doesn't. I hope you forgive my amateur level of technical abilities, as this is the very first film I've made at the age of 17, with no filmmaking training at this point. I would love to hear your feedback and yes opinions about the topic as long as it is not offensive. I also wrote a paper in which I show how I chose to portray certain symptoms in my film. I also talk about other aspects such as ADHD in literature and pop culture or my thought behind creating the characters and scenes. If you would like to read this, I’d be very happy to send it to you. Here is a link to various factsheets written by Dr Russell Barkley, a professor specialised in ADHD from whom I have learnt a great deal: http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets.html Here is a Youtube link to one of Russell Barkley's speeches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY You can also watch all my films on my website: www.sophiaralston.com
ABOUT

ABOUT

BIOGRAPHY

 

Sophia Ralston was born in Sydney, Australia in 1998 and grew up in Zurich, Switzerland where she received her Matura in 2016 with her first award-winning film project Roller Coaster Through the Clouds - a short film about ADHD (2015). Since then, she has been creating and collaborating on several low-budget short film projects and competitions across Europe. Her recent short film The Red World (2020) ran on national and international film festivals and received a large number of nominations and awards amongst others for Best Science Fiction Short Film and Best Message.

 

She attended various courses such as directing, writing, camera and acting workshops in Germany as well as studied “Acting for Film” at the Met Film School in London where she also gained work experience at Working Title Films. Since 2018 Sophia has been working in the Swiss film and television industry in a range of fields including assistant-director, editor and production-assistant.

 

After receiving her Bachelors degree in Filmmaking at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2023, Sophia returned to Switzerland to continue working in the field as a Crowd AD and to pursue her career as a writer/director predominantly in the music video and advertising industry.

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Photo by Namona Teggart

WORK EXPERIENCE

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, 2020

Undergraduate BA Filmmaking student

Various companies, Zurich, Neuchâtel, 2020

Covid runner / supervisor for SET Management, Zodiac Pictures Ltd and C-Films AG

 

Background Action, Zurich, 2019

Extras coordination, among others for «Stürm» and «Frieden» 

 

CognitoFilms, Zurich, 2019 

Internship 3rd AD for Arthouse feature film «Spagat» 

Snakefilm, Zurich, 2018

Production- / AD Internship for 7th season «Der Bestatter» 

10. Gässli Film Festival, Basel, 2018 
Internship, Promotion/Admin/Editing 

Working Title Films, London, 2017 
Work Experience, In-house Runner 

 

FILMOGRAPHY

2021 | «Tune It Out - Rock Opera Musical»

Director, Writer, Producer, Editor - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

2021 | «Mirror Mirror on the Wall - Monologues»

Director, Writer, Producer, Editor - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

2020 | «Secrets» 
Director, Writer, Producer, Editor - Application film

2020 | «The Red World» 
Director, Writer, Co-Producer, Editor - Application film 

2019 | «They Had it Coming» 
Director, Producer, Editor - Application film 

2017 | «Blue Baloon» 
Director, Editor- ZFF72 

2017 | «Absolution» 
Director, Writer - JugendFilmCamp 

2016 | «Wasserfall» 
Director, Writer, Editor - ZFF72

2015 | «Roller Coaster Through the Clouds - a short film about ADHD» 
Director, Writer, Producer, Editor - Matriculation Project

OTHER PROJECTS

2022 | «Rosario» 

Director of Photography, Camera Operator, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

2020 | «Split Scene» 
Co-Writer, Actor, Editor - JugendFilmCamp: InfluenZAr 2020

 

2019 | «Verführung» 
Script Continuity, Costume - Application film by Damian Derungs 

2019 | «Belcanto» 
2. AD Crowd - ZHdK Film by Ian Oggenfuss

2019 | «Mind Hacking» 
Writer, Editor - ZFF72 - Director: Regina Grimm

2019 | «Hotel: Honeymoon» 
Script Continuity - Web Series - Director: Julien Wagner

EDITING

EDITING SHOWREEL