Susan Wokoma on her short film Dark Skin Bruises Differently: "This wasn't the time to be centring whiteness in my stories"

Susan Wokoma may be best known for providing audiences with plenty of laughs in the likes of Chewing Gum, Cheaters and even Taskmaster, but the actress and writer is taking on a different kind of challenge with her short film, Dark Skin Bruises Differently.

Having made her on-screen debut as a teenager, Wokoma is no stranger to the industry, but is forging a path behind-the-scenes as a director and writer, with Dark Skin Bruises Differently getting its premiere at the esteemed BFI London Film Festival (in partnership with American Express) earlier this month.

Wokoma tells me that she "feels more at home at LFF than really anywhere else" so it really was the perfect place for her short film to debut.

"I love LFF because it's full of really smart, brilliant audience members who really, really love film. I think the thing that really got me was you have a shorts programme where you have eight to nine films being shown together. So, a lot of people are buying tickets to a shorts programme not knowing what these films are about," she says.

"They're not going for big names, they're just going to see a selection of shorts. I think actually, the people that buy tickets to that sort of screening, they're the real heart of film festivals."

The film itself is a staggering one and at just 10 minutes long, is a magnificent feat of storytelling that interrogates the education system, bias and micro-aggressions. Wokoma not only directs and has penned the film, but also stars as teacher Ms Lawson.

A well-meaning teacher that most would dream of having in their own school days, Ms Lawson is quick to defend student Maria Obasi, who is labelled a liar by her other teachers. We watch on as teachers use coded language to describe Maria, with the final shot of the film eventually revealing her to just be a young girl.

Because of the colour of her skin and the adultification that can often happen regarding Black children, we're made to think of Maria as one way by the teachers but in reality, she's nothing more than a child.

Wokoma reveals that when she originally wrote the story, Ms Lawson was actually white. It became the nugget of information that Wokoma almost dropped like a small bomb to LFF audience members after they'd seen it.

The original idea for the film was always intended for it to be a feature-length one, and it's one that Wokoma is actively working on as we speak. The short itself was "done as a reaction to the boring artist killing process of development", Wokoma shares. She admits at that point, she "just wanted to make something".

The process itself involved taking her ideas within her original pitch document and the aspects of the main story, and then thinking about how to craft them into a shorter form film. The change in casting and making Ms Lawson a Black woman was one that made sense for the direction of the story but also, as Wokoma says, is its own form of narrative reclamation in an industry that may be forgetting diverse stories exist.

"I was thinking of casting and I thought – actually, I think by default, a lot of projects that are about racism, you have to have a person of colour at the centre of that story and they're coming up against racism by normally, a white person," Wokoma says.

"Look, we've seen DEI rollbacks. All of a sudden, nobody's that interested in making diverse stories. Casting announcements are getting whiter and lighter by the day. I just felt like this wasn't the time to be centring whiteness in my stories, even if it is to talk about racism.

"I think that there's always going to be an element of me writing for myself, because I have to. I do it unashamedly because I refuse to wait around for people to give me opportunities. So I just thought, 'Well, what does it change of the story if I make her Black?'. And actually, I found it much more dramatically interesting if you have this Black woman who used to be a Black child, who understands the adultification that happens with Black children and yet, is faced with a dilemma where she has to choose between safeguarding this child and saving her job."

She continues: "For me, that's just a much more interesting story. So yeah, there is a feature film. But I think the shock of changing the Ms Lawson character, which only happened last year when we shot it after having the story in my head for decades, I'm now looking at the feature film going, 'Okay, now, what would that make the film? How would that change the film?'. I'm actually much more excited and energised to write that that version."

Screening Dark Skin Bruises Differently ended up also being accidental market research for that very casting change, Wokoma laughs. "I think we also have to respond to the climate," she says. "We don't need a story of a white Ms Lawson right now, maybe it would have been interesting a few years ago but I'm just not interested in that now."

It's refreshing to hear an actress, writer and director speak so candidly about the state of storytelling in the UK right now, especially when there are conversations around whether executives are actively "dumbing down" shows and films in order to appeal to wider audiences and those who scroll on their phones while watching. But those ideas take on a more damaging note when we're assuming audiences need to be infantilised and can only learn about racism – and the impact of it – through a primarily white lens.

"The reason why I'm standing quite strong on this is because I grew up reading books and stories about people who don't look like me. I think Persuasion by Jane Austen absolutely slaps," Wokoma says.

"I have the absolute pleasure of of going into worlds and being completely swept up with them. I don't need to walk in the shoes of those Asian characters in Bend It Like Beckham to absolutely love that film and it always be my go-to. I think that is the superpower that I have as an audience member, is that I don't have to have me looking back at me from the screen in order to empathise.

"But for a lot of people, they really, really, really struggle with that. Or they're threatened by any hint that changes that, ie Little Mermaid or Lord of the Rings, a fictional f**king magical land."

She continues: "I think that in order to maintain my sanity as an artist I am – and it's not like I have done really ever – but I just feel more compelled to not write stories that are about quote, unquote, appeasing to the masses. Because you look at something like Chewing Gum – that was never made for an American audience, and yet it was a huge international success.

"It all comes from what other stories that I want to write and now, I don't want to centre whiteness. I'm not interested – I'm not interested in begging, I'm not interested in going, 'Oh, please see me.' Ultimately, first and foremost, a film has to be entertaining, interesting and moving. And so I just felt that by making Ms Lawson Black, it was a more entertaining, moving, interesting film."

The casting change is one that Wokoma says jokingly that some people may get sick and tired of her talking about, but it's important to understand.

"Ms Lawson's been a Black child so she understands, whether she wants to admit it or not. She has definitely had those experiences where she has been distrusted, where she's been accused of things that she didn't do because there's a criminality that's associated with Black children," Wokoma says.

If you're looking for an example of that in action, all you have to do is watch Netflix's The Perfect Neighbour, Wokoma states. It was just the other day on set, she says, when an older actor shared that his own childhood neighbours used to set their dogs on him and other Black children in the area.

"He had white neighbours who trained their dogs to attack Black children, and that was part of the fun and games," she says. That happened in "multicultural South-East London", Wokoma shares, the very same place that Dark Skin Bruises Differently is set.

"I find it really interesting when, as Black people, there are things that you know of each other – pains – and then when you betray each other," Wokoma says, which only further underlines that captivating dynamic between Ms Lawson and Maria.

Crafting such nuanced storytelling and making the non-visible visible in a short film like Dark Skin Bruises Differently isn't easy, but how will Wokoma go about ensuring all of that is captured in the feature as well?

Whilst the micro-aggressions that we see in the short will make it into the feature, there's also the important notion of bringing Maria up to be more front and centre. That reveal of Maria as just a small child is one of the cruxes of the short, but there's a lot more to explore in the longer film.

"What is it in Ms Lawson that Maria sees and needs? What is it in Maria that Ms Lawson sees and needs? It's really about their relationship and how it ultimately fractures, that is the more concerning thing," Wokoma says.

Figuring out that character dynamic is also part of working something out in terms of Wokoma's own childhood, she tells me. "There's a reason why the two short films I've made, one of which I've directed, Dark Skin Bruises Differently, and then another, Love the Sinner – which I wrote but didn't direct – is about Black female girlhood, childhood. Because I don't feel like it's documented.

"I don't feel like waiting for anyone else to do it. So it's what I'm going to do until I feel like I've exercised whatever I've exercised and then, make some other stories.

"But for me, I really want to centre a quiet, complex child. I think that there is too much that's demanded where someone needs to be exceptional and literally magical."

She adds: "But I'm like, what is it about this quiet child that Ms Lawson sees? What is it about this potential that she sees? That's going to be the heart of the story. The micro-aggressions is the petri dish within where they both live in, but it's definitely not going to be a film about micro-aggressions. I think it's boring."

Looking to the future, Wokoma's feature film version of Dark Skin Bruises Differently is something she's actively working on, and as a result of the reception to it at various screenings and festivals, Wokoma has started work on it with her valued team.

Admitting that she has been "in development processes with the wrong people," Wokoma says that over the course of her career, it's been integral to explore who her "film family" is.

"I just wanted to make sure that I was working with people that I trust and who would be honest. I feel like it's taken my whole career to find this gang. And so now I feel ready and confident to make this film," she beams.

Having had various roles over the years (including in Enola Holmes, and lending her voice to World of Warcraft), what kinds of stories and narratives does Wokoma hope to be a part of, both as an actor and as a director or writer?

"I just want to stay away from AI slop," she says. "I want to stay away from people who are consumed by algorithms and the assumptions of what people want. I want to stay away from anyone who thinks that audiences are stupid, therefore we have to make our work stupid.

"I just want to work with people and on things where people believe in it, [where] nobody's testing the water and then abandoning it. I think that artists have to prevail in this absolute s**t show of not knowing what's real and what isn't. I want to work with collaborators and people who are not like awful fascists – that would be the dream."

But also, as Wokoma shares, it's about working with people who not only believe in what they're doing but also truly do believe in the power of art, something she's not coy about anymore.

I can't help but bring up a particularly poignant Instagram post that Wokoma shared that revealed that she'd watched "a much-lauded film" that was set in London but "not one character was played by a dark-skinned woman. No East Asian actors of any gender to be seen either," her social media post continues.

The post itself doesn't name the film and neither does Wokoma when we chat, but it does speak to a wider casting problem in the industry, she tells me.

"The reason why it shocked me is because people get up in arms when there is Black woman playing a f**king mermaid, when there are Black people in Game of Thrones, which also has dragons. People get up in arms when there's Black people in Star Wars – it's about stars and there's an alien called Jar Jar Binks, but people will get upset if they see a dark face.

"I think the reason why it hit me is because I thought, 'Well then, where are we allowed to be?' If we can't be in modern London, a working class story..."

Wokoma admittedly loved the film in question, but still found the "complete casting erasure" to be "really upsetting". "I think we've been shown that people don't actually care about diversity and inclusion," she says. "So what I hope is that, and this is something that my friend Abby Ajayi said to me, that hopefully the erasure will set us free."

She continues: "I'm not about banging on doors and begging people. I only want to work with the people who want to work with me and who see me. And if you don't, then that's completely fine. But I think, unfortunately, it was a trend.

"Diversity was a trend and now it isn't trendy. Even though, the thing that's really funny about it is that it makes money. All you've got to do is look at Sinners, it made an untold amount of money, which means that there is an audience out there that's absolutely gagging for these stories. But people still don't want to make them."

Wokoma's outlook is a refreshing one and she embraces it all as a form of freedom. "It's about being dogmatic and absolutely singular in your mind of the stories that you want to tell with the people that you want to tell it with, that's how I've seen it," she says.

"The erasure is my freedom."

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