Stephen (2023)

A docu-fiction hybrid following Stephen Giddings, a man from an addiction-afflicted family, who auditions for and takes on a film role, while transforming his life in the real world, blurring the lines between fact and fiction to examine addiction and recovery. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, the film was created with a mixed cast of professional actors and local people from the recovery community. Stephen is based on the real-life story of Thomas Goudie, a clerk at the Bank of Liverpool, caught embezzling money to support his obsessive gambling. Goudie’s arrest became the world’s first crime-reconstruction and first film made in Liverpool in 1901 by filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon.