Family secrets: a video interview with Karen Guthrie

Karen Guthrie’s film The Closer We Get (2015) offers a rare insight into her family’s story and the secret that her father kept hidden from the family for so long. Part of our partnership with the Unorthodocs programme of screenings and events.

'The Closer we Get' will be screened at London's Somerset House on 8th February as part of the Unorthodocs programme of documentary screenings and events, which asks why so many award-winning documentaries never make it onto British TV.

A daughter returns to her ill mother’s home to care for her. Her father unexpectedly returns to stand by their side.

Encompassing years of familial archives and more recent footage shot after her mother’s devastating stroke, Guthrie manages to bring to life an extraordinarily powerful portrait of her family.

While engaging with deeply intimate issues, the film’s emotional resonance is universal.

Guthrie’s previous works cover a large range of topics relating to modern British culture. Nina Pope is her long-time collaborator, and has co-produced The Closer We Get.

About the authors

Donato is a London-based journalist with a background in social anthropology and economics. His work has appeared in The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, VICE, and other publications. He tweets @donatopmancini.

Dea Gjinovci is a SOAS alumna and recently graduated from UCL with a Master Ethnographic and Documentary film. She is now based in Paris and pursuing a research master in social anthropology at l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). She tweets @dea_gj.

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