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Rachel Sarah 💙

Just thinking a whole montage of memories of me throughout the years stood in that stupid little voting box, looking down at the Green candidate, silently saying sorry, and reluctantly ticking Labour.

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Rachel Sarah 💙

It’s wild that so many people think that the UK is some kind of brilliant progressive country when we can’t even vote for who we want to because of our our voting system. They don’t even let us have proportional representation, like what kind of fucked up gaslit nation are we.

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Rachel Sarah 💙

Why are people still voting Tory?

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Follow @rachelsarah_m

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Rachel Sarah on Instagram

rachelsarahm

Freelance 🎥
She/her | vegan 🌍 | creating films, taking photos, + running around the mountains.

As a teenager I grew up in the countryside. A no-b

As a teenager I grew up in the countryside. A no-buses on Sunday, traffic stops to let the local ducks cross the road type of village.

When I was around 15, one of my friends, who was secretly queer, outed me to our friends. A photo of me kissing another girl went around the school and people zoomed in to “see if there was tongue”. It is a complicated story with me angrily outing that girl straight back, which lead to her eventually getting bullied out of school.

Like, fuck. It was a defining time in how I suppressed and dealt with my confusing sexuality and how I fit in, in a small bigoted place. I have never really spoken about this before as it’s something I don’t really like to remember but now, nearing 30, I see how much this all damaged me, how it damaged my romantic relationships. I am in such a happy relationship now, but a large part of me feels deprived and angry at how much I have struggled to connect with women on a romantic level because of how scared I was of really being myself.

I still have a bit of a block when it comes to my sexuality. Queer enough to be a called a dyke at school, but not feeling or presenting Queer enough to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community. My early experiences of not belonging is one of the reasons I am so excited to make this film with Frit, telling LGBTQIA+ stories in England so that other teenage Rach’s might see themselves and feel like they do fit in, but also one of the reasons I’m incredibly worried about how to do this film justice. I know the world is very different than it was 13 years ago, but it’s still such a difficult place for those in the LGBTQIA+ community. With so much nuance and variety and SO MANY stories out there.

This is a post I’ve wanted to write for some time, and there’s so much more to this story that I just can’t write right now, but will be when I have the headspace.

I don’t think, as a filmmaker, you HAVE to have an emotional connection to the film you’re making. But I’m recently finding that it’s something that is very, very important to me.

p.s. I know if teenage Rach could see her badass climber filmmaker self, she would be so stoked.

📸 @emily_nicholl_

It is so beautiful working with those you're close

It is so beautiful working with those you're close to, but it's also hard work. I'm cherishing these memories filming with Frit and Frankie for Glide for Pride as they settle into their new home in Sheffield.

Honestly, all three of us are pretty frazzled. And so are a lot of the creative people I'm working alongside and speaking with at the moment. As the world opens up more, diaries are filling up, all kinds of anxieties are rearing their heads, Whatsapp messages, audio notes and calls swing between efficient planning, supporting each other, with the odd grump at one another, followed by another supportive message and trying to make sure we give each other enough space to take time out from planning. Personal blends into work and there’s a point where no conversation isn’t permeated by project talk.

The balance between being close and also working together is a hard one to navigate sometimes. It's knowing when to give space and when to keep pestering because something needs to get done - and it's not always getting it right because everything changes with moods and stress levels and a million other things. It's never going to be perfect but that's the point. I already know that two months filming together will bring a lot of challenges but also a lot of joyful moments, too 🌞

- a mixture of photos with some film stills. I really enjoyed exploring @frit_tam and @frankie_dewar’s new home for compositions and details to show this part of Frit’s journey 🏠

The Ice Mile - the start of the journey. I am so e

The Ice Mile - the start of the journey. I am so excited to be working on this project over the next 12 months - a documentary film exploring endurance swimming and community in the UK outdoor swimming world, whilst following Becca during her year-long training as she trains for her Ice Mile.

We began filming in March 2021 and will continue to follow Becca as she navigates massive life changes - finding employment post-covid, moving from Sunderland to the Lake District, and being able to see her swimming community once again after a year of swimming in solitude.

The film seeks to explore the beauty of the UK, from high up mountain tarns, to the deep lochs of Scotland, and also show the hard training that goes into endurance and competitive swimming.

We are currently looking for film sponsors! 🥳

Director and Producer - @rachelsarahm
Director of Photography - @jessielphoto

Here’s to a whole year of being in the water and learning more and more about what it takes to create and connect and collaborate 🌞

“It is a privilege to educate yourself about rac

“It is a privilege to educate yourself about racism instead of experiencing it.”

#silenceisviolence

I sleepily crane my head to look out of the front

I sleepily crane my head to look out of the front window of the van as blue hour approaches, slowly swinging my feet around and into my slippers, sliding the side door open and peeping the camera out as the sun begins to rise.

We all love moments like this, moments in the outdoors. When we’re peering out of our tents in the mornings, huddled around stoves making our dinner in the mountains, waking up in a chilly van to find the light creeping in, stood at the trig point - looking out at endless views.

We keep repeating that the outdoors is for everyone, but it is not. In so many ways. We largely see these places as our ‘playground’, but they are more than that. Our National Parks are hard won spaces, our access to places like crags are complicated with land ownership rules with organisations like the @teambmc and volunteers doing hard work to keep that access for us.

The majority of my 8,000+ followers are people who love the outdoors, who - I assume..? - love the freedoms that are associated with living in a democracy.

And I think many of us think that these things, these protections, are just... there? No. Less than 1% of the population in England own the majority of the land. At the moment trespass is a civil violation, it’s tolerated. The new policing bill seeks to change that to a criminal trespass, largely seeking to harm traveling communities. The policing bill also seeks to, essentially, make ‘annoying’ protests illegal. Please, go back and read that again. Protests, illegal.

I see more anger and more posts about trash being left in outdoor spaces than I see about our government trying to take away our actually rights. There is something wrong with that. And it kind of rings of that rhetoric of blame that shifts from those in power to individuals. Because individuals are easier to blame and be angry at than a decade of austerity, lack of education, of government corruption.

And that blaming of each other, and the distraction of our new freedoms post lockdown, it is kind of what they’re counting on.

I find it difficult to talk about mental illness,

I find it difficult to talk about mental illness, about body image, about injury and recovery. And I know that there are many people who find it so much harder to talk, to be vulnerable, because of societal pressures and stigma.

On the theme of me being in the water with a camera a lot this year, I am really excited to share my second (and last!) waters film for this year - a documentary focusing on something I often feel is missing from adventure films - men’s mental health.

Talking about suicide, our relationship with our bodies, about trauma - these are all so hard to open up about, let alone to a camera and microphone, so I feel really grateful that @swimjim58 is letting @samwalker.uk and I into his life, his thoughts and feelings, his story.

And here’s to hoping that this film may help -everybody- in feeling more open about sharing and supporting each other ♥️

Oh and also Jim will be doing the small thing of swimming from Jersey to France this summer too... 🏊‍♂️ this is an endurance swimming film with a pretty special place in my heart already.

Our pitch trailer will come soon (currently getting sent to sponsors!) and there’s a sneak peak in my stories.

📸 video and film stills by @samwalker.uk and I

I’m learning to be gentler with myself. Well, I’m trying. I spend almost all of my own time in my own mind and thought after thought after thought are those kinds of thoughts that make me want to curl up into myself and never want to leave. A very fine line between motivating and criticising, a line so fine I crisscross over it all of the time. I understand and accept that this is often what living with depression is but it doesn’t mean that I can’t try and embrace the good so much more.

Hello to trying to be a little more unapologetic, and so much more kinder to myself about my body, my career, my creativity - just all of it. Everything. To celebration of self rather than shrinking because ‘it’s never quite good enough’.

It’s not all just bad, there is so much joy, too.

📸 @jessielphoto capturing me in my element, fresh out of filming in the evening sea with @harvmania and full of creative energy. Edit, me 🌙

“This is what democracy looks like.” Solidar

“This is what democracy looks like.”

Solidarity with everybody heading out this weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen in person so many different causes unite together like this - movements from all facets of social, environmental and animal rights justice speaking truth to power and challenging our government in a way that goes beyond this crime bill. It is just more than this single thing. We are tired of this corruption, the suppression of rights, and this movement toward fascism.

This is what democracy looks like. Spaces like this for normal people to have their voices heard. Please please know and repeat that protests are spaces for everybody, not just for ‘activists’, you belong there. And protests do create change, literal history is my reference for that.

To those able and comfortable to head out this weekend:

- don’t take or post imagery of others without consent
- know your rights (resources in stories)
- know what legal representation you can call if you’re arrested (hopefully your local protest has shared details on who is your legal rep contact)
- go with others if you can
- mask, sanitise, and distance.

It is past time for action. Not just reading and learning and unlearning. Action. Whether that takes the form of protesting or donating or having difficult conversations, in giving space to others, in challenging and turning down opportunities.

- I hope you’re able to stay safe this weekend ♥️

“the thing I find that’s missing from adventur

“the thing I find that’s missing from adventure films and film festivals and things like that is swimming. You see the beauty of swimming, but you don’t see the endurance behind it, you don’t see the grit behind it. And I just want to show people.”

Here starts a 12 month project, with @harvmania training over the next year for her Ice Mile. Exploring the solitude of swimming, and how much she has missed her swimming community - her mentors, and support - throughout the pandemic. How this community will begin to become part of her life again. Exploring and training from now, this spring, into the warmth of summer, autumn, and then into icy waters of winter when she will hopefully be ready to do her Ice Mile. I have to be honest, I had no idea how hard it was.

I grew up by the sea, I used to love the water, when I lived abroad I literally lived on a beach, and used to swim almost daily up until a five or so years ago. And it slipped away from me, and so I’m finally also fulfilling my own goals of getting in the water with the camera, in the oceans, tarns and lochs of the UK.

And, one of the best things, I’m working with @jessielphoto - who is somebody I looked up to when I first decided I wanted to start making outdoor films 🎥 it’s our first project together and I am pretty excited! We will be sharing lots of behind the scenes content and speaking to some really experienced swimmers to learn so many important things 🌞

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