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10th Jul 2019
Greta Bellamacina has already had a breakout year. The poet, actor, model and filmmaker made her big-screen debut in 2005 as a Slytherin student in , and has come a long way since then. This February, she was commissioned by Valentino to write 10 original poems for Pierpaolo Piccioli’s autumn/winter ’19/‘20 collection, many of which were embroidered onto his creations. In May, she made headlines after being denied entry to Cannes’s Marché du Film because she had her baby with her, igniting a long-overdue debate over the treatment of mothers at the festival. She was there for her feature-length directorial debut, , out this month, which she also co-wrote and starred in.
“It’s been incredible,” she tells , sitting in the study of her west London home, a Georgian townhouse she shares with her husband, the poet and artist Robert Montgomery. The place is buzzing with activity: Montgomery is downstairs working on his next project, while Bellamacina’s father, a musician who encouraged her to write from a young age, is in the next room singing to her sons, Lorca and Lucian. “We moved in six weeks ago and found out that the Queen’s plasterer used to live here,” she adds, pointing up at the elaborate cornicing on the ceiling. “It doubled as his workshop.” As a result, there are eccentric details everywhere – including a small church and a single Doric column in the back garden – and Bellamacina is completely in her element.
Influenced by the work of Anne Sexton, Alice Oswald and Sylvia Plath, she published her first book, , in 2011 and was subsequently shortlisted as Young Poet Laureate of London. A collection on female identity and motherhood, , followed in 2016, but Bellamacina was conscious that many in the literary community still weren’t taking poetry seriously. “Some see it as an archaic art form, so the challenge is to put work out there that is uncompromising and relevant to the world we live in,” she explains. “Growing up in London, I found there was so much on my doorstep that I had to talk about, like homelessness or social change. Poetry is frank, undiluted, profound. It can address serious issues and then ask you to make up your own mind.”
The difficulty young poets face when trying to get their work published is another issue Bellamacina and Montgomery are keen to address. The pair’s solution was to co-found New River Press, a publishing house that promotes emerging talent and gives half of the profits back to the writers. “Half are first-time poets and the other half are older, political poets who can’t get published by mainstream houses,” she says. “Poetry is one of the last uncensored spaces and we need to keep it that way.” Soaring sales (a record £12.3 million in the UK in 2018) and the rise of Insta-poets have helped the form, too. “There’s something more punk about poetry now,” Bellamacina adds. “With spoken word, it lives in pubs, bars, music venues and online. It’s a part of popular culture again. I’m always trying to find unexpected places for it to live and for new people to wander into it.”
One such place was last season’s Valentino catwalk, where extracts of her work appeared on the sleeves of jackets, woven onto dresses and hidden inside bags. Her poems were printed in full in an anthology entitled , alongside contributions from Montgomery, Mustafa The Poet and Yrsa Daley-Ward. “I’ve been a fan of Pierpaolo’s work for a long time,” says Bellamacina. “When he emailed and said he’d like to work on a poetry book together, I was so excited. He wanted us to write freely about personal experiences and in the end he didn’t change anything.”
Although Bellamacina has long been a fashion favourite, fronting campaigns for Shrimps, Mulberry and Stella McCartney, this collaboration meant putting her mark on a collection in a more tangible way. “At the show, it was great to find the book on seats but also to see the words on the clothes. When we went backstage, we saw little flashes of poetry everywhere. Pierpaolo wants you to go on that journey of discovery with him.” The designer himself has likened couture to poetry. “Both can belong in the past,” he tells “But it can be modern. You don’t have to change it. You just have to change the environment it exists in.” Bellamacina concurs: “Fashion, like poetry, should be theatrical but it can be political too. Fashion can elevate other art forms, and that’s what this show did. Pierpaolo created his own version of utopia, a world which he then opened up to others.”
It was the same impulse that inspired , which she describes as a “downbeat comedy about female friendship”. Having gone to drama school and acted in independent films after , she knew she wanted to direct, but was unsure about the subject matter. “Initially, I thought I should make something about real life,” she admits, citing her 2016 documentary , which examined the decline of British public libraries. “It was an issue that infuriated me and it was an amazing learning process, but I’d always been working towards a fiction feature.”
The following year, she began writing a script with collaborator Sadie Brown. It charted the lives of two women, one a struggling poet and single mother, played by Bellamacina, and the other a failed actress, played by Brown. “They live in the same building, become friends and co-parent this child,” she explains. “Nothing goes right for either of them, but they seek solace in each other.” With Montgomery signed on to produce, Bellamacina assembled a majority female cast and crew. “It’s not something we planned, but it did add to the story. It’s always easier when you work with people who understand your vision because they’re better able to help you realise it.”
Then Bellamacina discovered she was pregnant. “It sped up the whole process,” she says. “We realised we had to make the whole thing in the next six months, so we started shooting. When you’re tired, you’re more in touch with your emotions. It made me really assertive and I made decisions quickly.” After 30 days of filming, she spent six months in the editing suite. “Four days after I gave birth, I felt like I should get back to work. It’s a relief now to have it done.” The project has been a huge success, and after screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival it was nominated for both the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film and Best Performance in a British Film.
Her blocked entry at Cannes when she arrived carrying five-month-old Lucian – she was told her son would require a €300 (537 AUD) delegate’s pass, but when she offered to pay, she was informed it would take 48 hours to process and so she must leave the site immediately – sparked a media frenzy following a news story in . “It’s hard enough being a mother and trying to sell a film,” Bellamacina says. “Afterwards, you just don’t feel comfortable walking around with a child. When the article came out, it was overwhelming, but I hope that starting that dialogue was productive. Maybe next year it will be easier for mothers to bring their children.”
While she is keen to direct more films, Bellamacina is currently focusing on her writing. Up next is the Spanish-language publication of her , as well as a new collection, , due to be released in February 2020. “I hate to go into the whole Brexit thing,” she says, “but it has shaped our understanding of identity. There’s a poem in this new book called ‘The Jungle’ which is about Calais and the refugee crisis. In the current climate, everything feels like a reality TV show and I think we’re in danger of forgetting that these are real people who need our help.” She hopes poetry can provide an antidote. “It connects us to each other and remind us of our humanity, and that’s more important now than ever before.”
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