HOLDING ON

Short Talk with Emma Croft (director)

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILM Category

22nd IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival 2025

United Kingdom, Documentary, English, 00:08:48, 2024

Synopsis: Through diary footage filmed over many years and a fleeting yet precious summer a single mother records her son’s transition into young adulthood whilst struggling to keep a connection with him. She turns the camera on her son and his skateboarding hobby, documenting him growing up and in turn, rediscovering herself.  The film combines documentary and poetry to delve deep into a mother’s complex and profound love for her only son. It is a bittersweet depiction of a mother’s gaze as she watches her son’s last summer of boyhood. While the mother tries to hold on tight, her son teaches her to let go.

Biography: Emma Croft is an English actress, writer, and filmmaker. She began her career with the English Shakespeare Company and has acted alongside Colin Firth, Julia Ormond, Ian Glenn, and John Hannah in various films and TV dramas. Emma’s short film Honest Lies (2015) screened at the London Short Film Festival, and her feature debut Invincible (2025) is currently screening at international festivals. She is working on new projects and lives in London with her son.

Emma Croft, director

Toma Manov: Some parents choose to keep intimate family moments private. What inspired you to turn this into a documentary?

Emma Croft: I’ve been putting a camera in my son’s face for a very long time, probably longer than I should have. I didn’t really consider stepping back or giving him more privacy, which might not be great parenting, to be honest, but it’s also who I am as a filmmaker. On a more serious note, I think I wanted to leave him something, a love letter, really. These days, kids scroll through images so quickly on their phones. We don’t have physical photo albums like we used to, with pages and prints and memories you can hold. This film was my way of creating something lasting about this moment in his life.

Toma Manov: So it became your way of documenting and preserving this time?

Emma Croft: Yes, exactly. And it was also a time when he was beginning to pull away from me, as kids do. So I followed him, with my camera.

Toma Manov: What’s really striking is how you manage to frame that mother-son relationship through skateboarding. Did that metaphor come naturally, or was it something you consciously leaned into?

Emma Croft: Do you mean, was I a natural skateboarder? (laughs) Definitely not. But using skateboarding as a metaphor... yes, that came naturally, because it’s where I kept losing him. He’d disappear with his friends—"I’m going skateboarding," he’d say. "Where?" "Just... somewhere."

So if I wanted to understand where he was going, I had to become interested in what he was doing. At the same time, he still needed me, he needed a lift to the skate shop, or someone to help buy grip tape. And that opened the door to connection. It was his way of saying, "I’m okay, you can let go a bit." And it was my way of saying, "I still want to be here with you, even if it’s from a distance."

Toma Manov: And this took place during the pandemic, correct? COVID and adolescence usually isolate people. But in your film, it feels like it actually brought you closer.

Emma Croft: Yes, exactly. During the height of COVID, there wasn’t much we could do in terms of socializing. But being outside was allowed. So I’d drive him to skateparks or wherever he could meet his friends, because he could still be outside, still be with people. Earlier in the pandemic, though, he was very much just with me. I remember learning he was out on his own at the playground, no one else around. School had moved online, and the only contact he had with friends was through gaming. So I wanted to encourage him to be outdoors, to have something of his own beyond screens. Skateboarding gave him that, and in a way, it gave me a way back to him.

Toma Manov: And finally, we see in the film that you actually try skateboarding yourself. Was that something you saw as a challenge, or more as a joy, because it brought you closer to him?

Emma Croft: Oh, I loved it. I absolutely loved him teaching me. I don’t skateboard much now, but it was fun to try, to learn, to let him be the teacher. There’s actually a whole other story involving skateboarding that happened long after the filming... but I’ll save that for another time. (laughs)

Interviewer: Toma Manov

Editor: Martin Kudlac