British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

Blue Bag Life

Synopsis

A story gleaned from material collected over a lifetime. Lisa Selby, an artist and lecturer, has always documented her life in paint, words, photographs and film. As Lisa struggles to comprehend why her mother Helen didn’t raise her, Helen dies. Helen was charismatic, articulate, beautiful and addicted to heroin. Lisa now begins to get to know the woman she never called Mother, through the things she left behind and the memories of people who knew her. Lisa’s partner, Elliot, relapses on heroin and is incarcerated. Through her own sobriety and her love for Elliot, Lisa comes to understand addiction, and Helen, differently. She also uncovers a new possibility towards motherhood deep within herself.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2023 - World premiere - Audience Award - Winner
Official Selection Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2023 - International premiere - Film Forward Competition Golden Alexander - Winner

Details

Year
2022
Type of project
Features
Running time
90 min
Director
Rebecca Lloyd-Evans, Alex Fry, Lisa Selby 1st Feature
Producer
Natasha Dack Ojumu
Editor
Alex Fry, Rebecca Lloyd-Evans
Screenwriter
Lisa Selby, Josie Cole
Composer
Dana Wachs

Categories

Documentary

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Tigerlily

Sales Company

Modern Films

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

The Archivist The Archivist

Director: Rob Curry, Tim Plester

Year: 2026

In a battle against time and technology, can Britain's greatest living folklorist find a home for his vast archive of irreplaceable audiovisual material?

Music Scottish Sport
An image from a microscope Hematology

Director: Ben Young

Year: 2026

The alien cosmos of microscopy becomes the setting for a posthumous dialogue: an exploration of the unspoken fallout of the pandemic years.

Biography Disabilities Experimental History
A man driving a taxi in the nighttime Ghost Town

Director: Katharine Round

Year: 2026

In a Japanese coastal town still haunted by the 2011 tsunami, a taxi becomes a moving confession booth. Over the course of one night, a series of conversations between drivers and their passengers reveal how those who survived live with the dead - as ghostly tales, dreams and everyday life merge in a magical drift between reality and imagination.

Asian Docufiction Woman Director