“You do all these things when your kids are little, like art and finger painting, and then they stop and become disengaged with their creativity,” says British actor and film producer Sadie Frost of starring in Dotty opposite her youngest son, Rudy. “It was great to have the opportunity to go off and do something collaborative.” 

Directed by Ben Charles Edwards, the much buzzed about short was conceived by Frost and her Blonde to Black Pictures partner, Emma Comley, as a way of raising funds for Edwards’ forthcoming feature, Set the Thames on Fire. Shot on the “quiet side” of Lanzarote, Dotty explores an unexpected cross-generational friendship between a young boy and an eccentric, much older woman he encounters in the desert. 

“Dotty is a natural progression from Suzie Lovitt,” says Comley about Rudy’s flamboyant dry cleaner alter ego, the subject of an archival home movie premiered on NOWNESS earlier this week. “Both [shorts] mark an interesting point where Sadie and I really started to get inside each other's heads. Plus, working with Rudy was a joy on Suzie – we always wanted to work again with him in some capacity.”