“By telling the story of five older women, I hoped to depict a snapshot of real people rarely seen on screen. Weaving in details from their day-to-day lives, Wannabe tells a story that accurately reflects their lives in austerity-era Britain. Anita, a cleaner who plays Scary Spice, for example, has seen her increasingly precarious job become outsourced more and more while her shifts are cut. As a woman in her mid-70s, chances of finding new work in an economic system that favours young, male and physically-abled bodies are slim. The reality of struggling to make ends meet affects her mental health on a daily basis, and as anyone living in rented accommodation knows, there is little margin for error or misfortune.”

Dorothy Allen-Pickard is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary theatre-maker from South-East London. In 2019, she received the BFI New Talent Award and was named as one of Broadcast’s Hotshots. She has a particular interest in merging aspects of documentary, fiction and theatre to explore subjects such as mental health, disability and the social and political changes that affect those who are marginalised. She’s the co-founder and video editor of the film journal Another Gaze and a member of the award-winning multimedia theatre company Breach. Recently, Dorothy completed an MA in Directing Fiction at Goldsmiths University and is currently developing her debut dramatic feature, Weekend Dad.

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