Over the past year-plus, writer-director Laura Carreira feature debut, On Falling, has boosted her visibility on the film festival circuit and beyond. Produced by Sixteen Films with backing from the BFI, BBC Films, Screen Scotland, ICA, and Goodfellas, the movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and had its European premiere at San Sebastián, where she won the Silver Shell for best director. On Falling, which tells the story of Aurora, a Portuguese worker in a Scottish warehouse navigating loneliness and alienation in an algorithm-driven gig economy, also went on to win the Sutherland Award at the BFI London Film Festival and the best film honor at the Dublin Film Festival. Now, Carreira, a Portuguese filmmaker based in Edinburgh, Scotland, is on the U. K. 2025 BAFTA Breakthrough list of up-and-coming talent, supported by Netflix, which was unveiled on Tuesday. She talked to THR about the honor, moving from editing to writing-directing and what’s next for her. On Falling focuses on work in a way we don’t often see in film. Can you talk a little bit about what you wanted to do with the film and why? Part of the intention was to lead us into a life that is often invisible. When we get parcels at home, we don’t see the amount of labor that goes on behind that parcel getting to you. And I think sometimes companies like to pretend it’s all big technological advances that make it possible. But most of the [time] that’s actually not what’s happening. What you have is someone, a human that is, running to get to the next parcel and spending all day following the directions of a scanner. The moment I discovered this world and the job, I knew that there was a film in there, because it felt like such a dystopian job. It felt important to look into it. How timely is the film? I started writing it several years ago, and just now in the news is that so many of these jobs are going to be replaced by robots. So, it feels like we’re reaching a time when people are no longer cheaper than robots, and perhaps, that job will disappear soon. So it feels like it was a film very much of a time. And I also think it reveals something about the state of our world and the neoliberal system and all the manic willingness to put people through anything just in the name of profit. You’ve worked as an editor before. How does your editing experience help when you’re working as a writer and director? I think I learned most of what I know about filmmaking through editing. I am a true believer in [the idea that] you make the film in the editing. You might shoot an incredible film, but if it doesn’t come together in the editing, you don’t have an incredible film. And I’m sure there are many films out there that could have been a lot worse as well, if they hadn’t been edited [the way they were]. I worked with an incredible editor on this one, Helle le Fevre. And she’s a big part of why the film works. I learned editing in high school, funnily enough, and at that point I just knew it was a way of putting a film together. And then at uni, I did a degree that was very practical, and it turned out I was one of the few people in my class who knew how to use the software. So, out of necessity, I ended up editing a lot of people’s work. And through that, I got my first job. So I was still trying to do directing and writing. I tried the supposedly normal strategy, which is doing a good graduation film that then opens some doors. Well, my graduation film did not do that for me. So I finished university and was just not sure how I was going to get into the film industry at all, and editing was the only thing that I seemed to get approached to do. So I began editing, mainly documentaries, which was important because I think documentaries are so much freer. People don’t demand the same things from documentaries that they do from a fiction film. So there’s a lot more freedom in terms of editing. But I kept thinking I one day want to figure out how else to get into the industry and try another approach. And that was when I decided to do my first fiction short, Red Hill, and that’s kind of how I got into the industry. But I learned so much about editing it’s something I still absolutely love doing. It’s where I have the most fun in the making of a film. Do you have new film ideas that BAFTA Breakthrough could possibly help with? I still have a few things cooking. They’re in very early stages, but they are all related to work, which has been my main obsession and will continue to be. I’m now finishing writing a script that I feel could be the next film that I shoot. I’m also trying to survive financially as a writer, and so also trying to work out how to do that and get other projects cooking, so that I remain in the industry, because it’s a really tough industry to be in if you don’t have a lot of disposable income. Can you share anything else about your new idea? I’m looking at a book adaptation that will be new for me. It’s going to be a period piece, which is also something I’ve not done before. But I’m quite excited because in On Falling I did a lot of research. I spoke to [warehouse] pickers to use their testimonies to inform a lot of the scenes. Now, with this book, I’m going to do something similar, but.
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