Felicia's Journey
NFTS Production design workshop
Film Moodboard
Joseph's Hilditch's Moodboard
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Joseph's Mother's Moodboard
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Script given information of Joseph Hilditch and his Mother.
**The story was written and is set in late 1990s
Joseph Hilditch is in his 50s, in late 1990s and he was a young dependant child during his Mother's TV chef career in the early 1960s, which means that Joseph must have been born in the late 1940s and Joseph's mother was likely born in the early 1930s or late 1920s.
Joseph's mother could have been a teenager when war broke out. She is French, (script notes she speaks with an accent) which means that Joseph's Father was likely a WW2 soldier who fell in love with a woman in France during the war, who he would have brought back to UK with him after the war.
Joseph's Mother likely gave birth to Joseph in England. Joseph is very British by nature, reserved, and it's not noted that he speaks French, or speaks with an accent. It seems that his mother readily accepted her life in England, and didn't try to preserve the French Culture with her son, she appears to have been a strong woman focused more on the future and less likely to hold on to the past.
Joseph Hilditch's Mother
Even though Mrs Hildtitch only appears in the film through flashbacks or old VHS tapes, she's an extremely heavy presence all through out the film.
Joseph behaves the way he does because of how much neglect he suffered from his mother. The house I am to design was hers originally. Mrs Hildtich made the choice to buy and live in the house Joseph is still living in now. She undoubtedly equipped it to her liking and as Joseph worships and misses her so much, it's unlikely he would have dared to alter it.
Joseph's mother was a French single mother in Birmingham in the early 1960s and she was also a famous TV chef at a time when only a number of households owned a television, single motherhood was looked down on and young mothers were unlikely to have a career.