Black Heels and Tractor Wheels - Presented by Rural Women New ZealandToday we talk to Amelia Dunbar, artist extraordinaire. Amelia operates both a rural entertainment business and works as an artist from her home in Windwhistle. Having made a decision very early in life that she wanted to remain living rurally, Amelia has been working as an actor/writer /producer of comedy duo The Bitches’ Box. The Bitches’ Box which has toured nationwide delivering comedy shows in our rural communities over the last decade.
The shows encourage rural communities to come together for a meal and a laugh and build connections in remote rural Aotearoa New Zealand. She is currently working on a feature length film based on the live shows which will bring The Bitches Box story to a wider audience.Amelia is also an artist and has been selling her beautiful works for over twenty years, under the name Amelia Guild Art.
We talk to Amelia about the Bitches’ Box, how she met her comedy partner Emma and her experience at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
You can read more about the Bitches’ Box here: https://www.bitchesbox.co.nz/
And you can listen to the episode here: https://linktr.ee/ruralwomennz
Welcome to the Black Hills and Tractor Wheels podcast, where we are sharing stories from a range of women from around New Zealand.
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We're your hosts, Emma Higgins and Clan Williamson and would love for you to join and subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss our rural stories. Amazing Amelia, thank you so much for joining us today on the Black Hills and Tract Wheels podcast. This one is super exciting for me for a couple of reasons. One that you are our supreme winner for our ended i Ral Woman Business Awards for twenty twenty two, and the second is that you drove the entire high away to my hometown and presented to my community, which was very very special. So we'll talk a little bit about that later, but thank you and welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. It's very cool. It's a bit awkward having to talk about myself, but hey, we.
All need to do that from time to time.
So my first question is we kind of ask you to cast your mind back for a couple of years to your upbringing, your childhood, what you learned, what you did, how you grew, how you felt, and sort of paint a wee bit of a picture and a story for us of the young Amelia and how she grew up to be an amazing actress living in a gorgeous place in the South Island, married to a lovely man with two small children.
Yep, oh okay, Oh my goodness, Well it's so fun. I love that you said, only a couple of years ago, cash your mind back. Yeah, yeah, it was just so young. Yeah. So I grew up in whind was still where I still where I live now. I mean, obviously I've had time away in between, but yeah, gorgeous farm upbringing, I feel when I think back, I mean, it was it was a charmed existence really. You know. We went to a little country school. I've got two older brothers. We we you know, did a lot of horse riding while I did. They didn't so much. You know, we've got to work on the farm every holiday, so we got to you know, get a good sense of or you know, earning your own money, but also a decent kind of work ethic instilled from quite a young age, I think, and I just yeah, I mean wonderful community. I absolutely love it here so close to the mountains, so I've spent a lot of my life skiing, and then really not too far to whip through to the coast or to christ Church if you really want. So, yeah, I absolutely loved it, and I think probably because it was so good, and maybe because we got sent off to boarding school a little bit young. We've all actually come home. Well you always tell mom and dad that you sent us the way too soon. So we're all back here. So my brothers are also back working on their farm on the farm Storry with their families as well. So we've got tourism, farming and bee keeping all sort of happening off the one land asset with your mum and dad still here as well too. So yeah, it's pretty wholesome love that.
I actually really like the idea of these multiple yet land uses.
I think that's really neat.
Tell me a little bit about the tourism part of it, How does that work?
Yeah, so I think that's I mean, it's obviously such a huge issue for any landowners. They've got multiple children suddenly going, oh my godness, we've got this single land asset. How on earth do you sort it out in the future. I mean, the fairest thing would probably just be slid and move on. But everyone's got such a strong connection to the to the place that you know, Mum and Dad were always really open with us and very very fair. I think because I was quite a stroppy, youngest, youngest child and the younger girl. I wanted to be treated like the boys. I wanted to go and get the same jobs out on the farmers them. I didn't want to stay home and do the ironing, and so he was always dead specifically when he talked about the farm. It was never that, you know, it went to one in particular, and so I think, I mean, certainly, when I decided at quite a young age that I wanted to be an actress and an artist, that didn't really fit with coming back to the land. But we've all had a really strong connection to it. And so sorry, I just winded back to your question about the tourism. I can't it must have been about twenty five years ago. Because it's a high country station, not all of the land is really highly productive. About four and a half thousand acres was ring fenced for a game hunting tourism operation. And then my eldest brother, Simon, he came back ten fifteen years ago to to sort of take that over and really take it up a notch, and he's done an incredible job. I mean, the last few years have been brutal with no border openings, so that was pretty rough. But we're setting me back into full swing at the moment, and so that's one part of it. But we're also doing We've actually recently got a fleet of Ubco bikes, so we're doing the yeah, sort of tourism that way. We've got a big, beautiful, big new boardroom that overlooks the woolshead and sheetyards and so we can host conferences and yeah, there's there's sort of a lot of different things going on, which is cool.
I feel a rural New Zealand board meeting coming at High Pech Station that would be.
Okay. So we talked a little bit about your early childhood.
Now I'm really interested in how you got into this creative acting phase, because I feel that you're both visual art and creative acting based art great way of describing it is a real part of you, and it has been a part of you for a long time. And I'm really interested in the process that I suppose happened, in the evolution.
Of how that kind of came about.
I'm assuming that you were a really fun child learning to act and sing and dance and do wonderful painting and art.
It's well, no, I can absolutely correct you on that. I was shy, a really shy little kid. I mean I used to get called smiles I think when I was little because I just smiled and didn't say a lot. And I was you know, I was terrified of talking class. I mean, I still go read if people talk to me, you know, in a public setting, it's ridiculous. I have absolutely an idea what is in me that made me certainly go down the performance side of things, I mean, mums and artists, so that's a fairly logical, you know, influence on on my direction on the visual art side of things. And I had amazing tuition at school. It was very very lucky Rangruru. We had amazing tutors and facilities there which kind of nurtured things, but certainly on the acting front, I don't know. I had a great drama teacher at Win was sort of school, believe it or not, all of twelve or fifteen of us in the school. We had a local one of the local sort of parents or grandparents actually, she came into a bit of drama with us, NICKI Tripp and she was just so fun and so cool, and it does it really did sit with me. I think we did these fun little Christmas concerts. I'm sure they were painful to sit through for the parents, but we loved it. And they were always kind of comedy based and silly and play for and I think it there was that thing of I mean, I hate talking as Amelia, but I'm very happy to you know, learn some lines, embody another character, and make people laugh. I mean, I love love making people laugh. I mean, it's the most wonderful thing, you know, when you do it just organically, but when you can actually practice that and get your feedback right there from a life performance, you're getting your feedback immediately. The joke didn't work, we go back rewrite it, and you know, that's where we've been so lucky with the Bitch's Box, we've been able to kind of polish and hone on the road. But then I guess, yeah, heading off to Warning School, I was again like suddenly this tiny wee fish in these big ponds, and I got really super shy again and didn't put myself forward for much stuff. And it was one show in fourth form yet where they sort of did an open audition kind of thing and it was a comedy and I was like, ah, yeah, I'll give it a go. And then I had amazing directors and support there which really kind of nurtured things, and on we went, and it was Yeah, I think it certainly a surprised mum and dad that I was that way and climbed in terms, you know, that that was such a passion because they didn't necessarily come naturally. I wasn't an out there kind of kid. But but yeah, I really do love it. I do think actually being a little bit more reserved can really help enacting. You're an actor, you know, you probably observe a weet bit more and you were on trying to sit back and just sort of yeah, see the way other people are and perform and that sort of thing. And then and then use that and new characters later on.
I feel like you just described my childhood because we also had a drama teacher who was incredible. I was not a teacher who was a parent of a friend exact, and we did the same things the Christmas concerts, which were terrible.
What funny? Oh, you know in that very hall that you.
Then came and presented in you're and Emma visited? Are so speaking of Butcher's Box and Emma? I want to hear the story of how this all came about. So how did you set this up? How did you meet and decide to connect in with Emma, who the two of you are just incredible together. And what does that evolution look like over the years, because I know that it's been quite a while now that you've had the Bitch's Box and there's been different things. Is that the right way to describe it over the years? So tell us a bit about that story.
Okay, Well this I like to call this my sliding doors moment. I so nearly didn't go this way and it has been such a huge part of my life since. So basically I was living in Auckland, I was painting, which is kind of ticking along. I was starting to get a little bit more recognition, and that front was good. But I was really up there because I was doing an acting class, amazing it acting class with Max Ciscente, just to really try and get into the acting scene out there. But I found it incredibly hard to crack, say, the theater scene. It's sort of and you kind of once you ran your sort of no One and you're fine, but it's very hard to kind of get noticed and get seen. And so I said to myself, right, the next thing that comes along, I just I just have to say yes to it, even if it's scary. I just have to just to have yes moment. And then I got this call from a friend who said they were organizing an evening called Stranger Things, and it was where they paired up strangers at twelve different strangers from totally you know, varying creative persuasions. So there was a trapeze artist, there was a filmmaker, there was the actor Emma, there was the artist Amelia and you and the other ridiculous thing. Emma was actually living in the UK at the time. She'd been away for ten years and she had won a trip through Marmite to come home. She'd won a competition, so she was just back in music for a couple of months and she got asked to do it as well. We got paired up and it was, ah, I mean, the rest is history. It was. It was such a beautiful thing. It was a hilarious blind date and kind of going, oh, so what are you into? Shall we do a should we do a comedy thing? I love comedy too, my god. I love the idea of talking animals me too, Okay, And I'd just actually seen the show Waiting for Godo down here in christ Church with Saren McKellen, and I just really loved the idea of not a lot happening. But it was if you know the show, it's it's a brilliant, brilliant piece, but nothing really, you know, the story doesn't massively progress. And so that's kind of where the first ten minute iteration of the Bitch's Box came from. So where were we basically got on stage really sort of vamped up, looking, you know, like a red light district, basically talking very candidly about sex and urges and all these things. And at the end of the ten minute we sort of it was revealed that we're actually dogs on heat in the bitch box, and so I was like, that was kind of the punchline, but it was just a really funny thing to explore, like what would a bitch think about if she was loved in pitch box for all those days? And what would you do a while away at the time, And so, yeah, somebody after the show said that was really fun. I think you should develop it into a full length piece, which we did and first time writing or devising for me. Emma had done a little bit more. I mean, she's like a fourth generation actor, so it's very much in her, in her bones, that girl, and she's absolutely brilliant. But we, yeah, have it's been a real learning journey the whole way through. We've you know, we've written this piece together and then we toured it. We were like, oh, the most logical place to perform a rural dog comedy would be a woolshed, right, Okay, Yeah, we'll get a in an audience of maybe thirty that would be great, and we'll perform with Mel Parsons, who's a really old friend of mine, the singer songwriter. We'll do a double bill evening and then we were just going away by the support we got. You know, the first show we did was in wind Whistles, so we definitely had the backing of the home crowd, but we had I think we sold out about one hundred and fifty. Oh my gosh, this is terrifying. And then we did it just hilarious naivety and ambition in that first time. We booked a twenty date tour for our first ever tour all around the South Islands, and then we did the North after that, so it was five shows a week, incredibly grueling. My poor husband then boyfriend was the roadie, the MC, the barm and he had to drive us and listen to us, kind of bending back and forward between every show, going oh we need to change this joke, or that one's not quite landing, or it was yeah, it's a real time. But anyway, I didn't scare him off too much, but he certainly never came on the road again.
I love this and actually one of the things I found really neat so I heard the story of the first tour. So my parents went to that first North Island tour and we they told me about it. It was creation, all the things and then obviously made this connection with you through Real Women New Zealand and then found out that you were coming back to my hometown with your new show. So tell me about how the I suppose just how do you develop these themes because the second theme is all about circus dogs, and.
How the third one? Sorry, yes, but how did it then developed?
Were so Emma and I The way we kind of work is, I'm sure lots of different writers have different styles and things, but we'll kind of get together and really often will come with characters that we want to play with, but also just really trying to delve into all the corners of dog. So it's like, you know, you want to look at all the different drivers that a dog hits, so it's like, you know, food, sex, play, and then all the different jobs and the different sort of owners that come with those dogs and sort of profile the owner I suppose through the dog. So yeah, the first one is very much based on the farm. So it was the two bitches and then the there was the house dog. There was the old retired pig dog, beaten up pig dog. He was a glorious he dribbled everywhere, and then there was these two Jack Russell what we call the diesel dogs. You know, I don't know if you have an experience of this, but growing up, I'd always would always be, you know, the tractor driver would always have, you know, a little dog in the cab within or you know, the diesel dog. It's always like on the motorbiker. It's in the front seat of the ute with his little grubby paws up on the dish, that sort of thing. And so they had these two little narrators of the first show. They went through to the second show and so that was some of a bitch and then their story was about the day they got taken off to town, which was really thrilling and exciting to begin with, and then they got to meet all these amazing heightened town dogs, you know, these very full on characters. But then they actually spoiler alert, they got there. They were newted that day, so there was a trauma wrapped up in that one. But that was the second show and then the third show. Yeah, as you said, we went really left field with this one, and we had some freedom camping X circus dogs from Switzerland, really really terrible accents. But yeah, again we just were like we just played around for ages with these improvising different characters and different things, and sort of landed on that and then had to find a sort of a central place I guess where you could then meet other dogs, and so it wound up being the the petrol station or you know, the local garage where the Freedom camping wagon had broken down, and so that's why these dogs are there, and then they got to meet all the dogs that passed through the gas station.
It's such a you depict such classic scenes like I remember that being the real feedback from the original one that my parents attended, and it is just everybody relates. So if you're in a rural area, you relate to the local gas station with the cattle truck going past, and you know this and that, and then you get the odd sort of posh person with their dog and you know, yeah, it is fantastic. What I am interested in, just slightly change in subject, is you have two very creative outlets, So you have your art and you have your performance I suppose, and that the show kind of and being on the road and things like that. How do the two of these balance and how does that actually fit in as well with your family? And I imagine it can be quite chaotic at times. How does that how does that come together for you?
Yeah, No, you're absolutely right. I think that's actually the perfect balance for me, because you know, the performance is very you know, it's very outward, it's very kind of extroverted. I suppose you know, you're always meeting people. It's it's it's busy and it's full on, whereas the art is such a a haven and a sort of a solitary place where I can just go and listen to a podcast and create, and I feel like it's it's sort of it's almost like it's less considered, it's more organic, like if I'm yeah, it just sort of if I'm in the right zone, it just sort of comes out and it feels really fulfilling and sort of peaceful. Actually found a really brought it home for me over lockdown because I couldn't get that sort of quiet time and a wee bit of reboot for Amelia time because the kids were home and Tom was an essential essential worker as a beekeeper, so I was I found that after six weeks of not actually getting that reprieve of just a little bit of quiet time in the studio, I was, you know, really brought it home to me that I do need that sort of that balance and that sort of decompression, you know, chill time. So I feel incredibly lucky that the two things I love doing and the two things that I earned from are actually incredibly complimentary. Because when I've been in the studio for months on the end, I'm like just a little itch to get back on the stage, and then vice versa. When I'm at the end of a tour, I'm like, oh, I can't wait to just get back and chill at home. But I mean, the biggest one really is family life, and I've been very lucky that I can be a very present mum. My way one Rollo has he's just gone to school, so I finally got a bit more space in my days. But for a while there it was maybe one or two days a week max where I could actually my own stuff. But you know, I was really fortunate to have him around, or both of them around, you know, when they were little. So it's all a juggle as a mum, isn't it. But it's also I've decided this year it's a bit more about you know, actually doing those putting myself first time actually put scheduling in some regular exercise, which I think is is really nice and it's just I'm a better human for it, really, But it also means that the creative stuff can kind of come out more easily. Sometimes it can feel a bit forced if you're like, right, we've got oh, I've got half a day and I have to get this done. It's just like, oh, I can feel quite hard. But yeah, it's feeling pretty good. Twenty twenty three so far.
Yeah, I love it. And I've heard as well that you.
Are potentially going to explore the big screen in some way, yes, and that you may also be wanting smithsiftant with it from a financial perspective. I'm interested in what this might look like because we've actually talked about it a little bit of off air. But tell me a bit about the next project here and what you're sort of wanting to achieve with it, because I think it's just bloody awesome.
Yeah. Well, we're so lucky, but we got we're working with rialto they've actually asked, you know, to partner with us to create a fature film of the Bitch's Box. So this past year, Emma and I have been learning rapidly how to write a screenplay. It's quite different than there, I'll have you know. And again that process has felt like wading through a treacle at times, but then ultimately really rewarding, where I think we're a fifth draft. We just completed last weekend, and I'm pretty sure we're nearly there. They might be some tweaks and changes, but I think this is this is it, and we're actually looking to shoot in August, so it's very much underway. But we still, yeah, we do have a financial shortfall that we get to meet, but we know that, we know that we can get there, and we will get there. It's a bit of a random one to sort of go to companies and say, look, would you like to invest in the film when they're not sort of used to being approached by that. But I about that sort of thing, but I think we feel so strongly that it is a really necessary thing for the rural community a to sort of to see themselves represented in an authentic but lighthearted and fun and silly way. You know, it's not country Calendar, which is beautiful and I love it, and it's not you know, it's obviously there really isn't any other fictional rural stuff out there, and so, and we don't certainly don't want it to be a caricaturer of rural New Zealand. We want these characters to feel sort of recognizable, but albeit via dogs. So, but we also know that the communities that have supported us over the past decade are always so so supportive and amazing and hungry for more, you know, So we do want to take the film back to those communities and sort of recreate those Wallsheed shows. But we can obviously get to so many more people at the same time when there's when it's on screen and it's not just us turning up in the flesh. So yeah, we know that it's having a laugh is pretty needed right now in the rural sector. So we know it's just something that's worthwhile doing.
And I remember you saying somewhere that you set out to have a community minded show to give rural people a reason to get together. And I remember when you finished your show out at Kenihako, which is where I'm from, and my mum actually helped organize it, and she said at the end, please don't go home, come and connect with the rest of your community, and it's such a powerful thing to bring people together, have a laugh, often, have some food, a couple of drinks, and then facilitate those conversations that we know everybody needs to have, those those connection points and it's so important for rural people to get off the farm, and you're creating an opportunity for that, which is fantastic.
Well, yeah, we were kind of we sort of did it by accident, I guess, because we're like, we want to take our show on the road, but then it just became so apparent that it's just so needed. And yeah, I mean that's what's been the most amazing and rewarding thing about it is just the kind of the event, the space that creates for all these other connections to happen, and yeah, checking in with each other and especially in these tougher times.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I'm going to pivot slightly now and ask a little bit about this connection with a woman because obviously we.
Now have you into our fold and we will not let you go.
So can you tell our listeners a little bit about your Real Woman Business Awards experience, because it's something that seems to have been able to give our businesses, our rural businesses led and developed by women, more of a platform and also a way to celebrate success.
Yeah, well it was amazing. I actually probably I didn't quite realize what I was in for, as you probably saw in my incredibly poorly rehearsed speech, but I was not prepared. But it was It was just incredible to see the kind of caliber of you know, things happening out there, of what women are doing in the rural sector, but just so so much energy and so much diversity in you know, what they're doing and the way they're you know, making stuff happen in these corners of New Zealand. It was it was super inspiring, and that's why I really was absolutely gobsmacked that I somehow got that would but it was very very cool. I yeah, I absolutely love the experience.
I've got another interesting question, because I love that you mentioned earlier your whole family has come back to the farm and after perhaps a little bit of time away, and I'm sort of a bit interested in the differences between when you grew up in Windwhistle and as a child and what life is like for your children in the same place, and sort of how that's evolved over time. Because I think there'll be some things that sort of will never change, but there'll be some things that are quite different.
To when you were you were young.
Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I think that was probably the biggest draw for coming home was just we'd had such a wonderful childhood and I think, wouldn't that be the most amazing thing to give our kids, you know, this amazing chance to grow up on the land in a really lovely, warm, supportive community. It's certainly I think when people come to Winist School or to win So, they think it probably does have a bit of a nostalgic feel of like how it used to be. It's very because there's only two classrooms twenty six kids, I think, and you know, they all play across the age groups and they will work together, and it's and parents have a really large involvement, which I know as soon as you go on to bigger schools that can suddenly you don't and you're not so involved. Like I've got to go and take a cross country training next week, so I'm slightly worried I might have to go for a training run myself. But but you know, just there is that amazing connection between the different generations as well, you know, like the grandparents involved. We have to do big fundraising events just to keep the school going, you know, to keep the second teachers and that sort of thing employed, and so there's a huge amount of If everyone kind of mucking in and it's such a key part of a little rural community, the school, you know it, it suddenly makes it an attractive place for people to come and work if they've got families. You know, you'd be It would be such a loss if we lost it, because there is really nothing else. There's a garage and that's it. So I think I wouldn't. It doesn't feel overly different to me in a funny way. So when I was there, it still feels that same warm, supportive, fun that very rural little school in place to learn, which is really neat.
Yeah, I love it.
I think, you know, some things never change those values, and in the sense of mucking in and doing things.
Together, which is a it's pretty cool.
One of the other things I'm curious about for you, given that you've had a lot of different projects, you've been away from a real setting, You've had some success with this sort of new project that's never really been done before you've experienced success with your art, What is the most fulfilling or proudest moment you've had in your life?
And why, oh that's a big one in a creative sense, I.
Think, so yeah, I'm interested.
Oh my goodness, I suppose there's been a lot. I think there's there's always been ambition, obviously, because we've kind of, you know, I've just kind of kept doing my thing, and so I've always felt that I could do it. But then anytime it's been recognized, either you know, in a painting sale or in an award or a positive review, it always kind of, you know, catches me off guard and oh my god, yes, wow, really are you sure? And you get this sort of impostera syndrome creeping in. But probably one that really sticks out actually was when we took the show to Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The incredible, dynamic, intense, crazy month that is Edinburgh Fringe and we so you perform every single day, and when you're not performing, you're out there sort of spooking shows. You're trying to get people to come along. And when you're not doing that, before you show, you're seeing shows. So there's entertainment going from sort of ten in the morning till three or four the next morning. So there's just so much amazingness on offer all the time. And so we'd been going pretty hard on all fronts and we've been getting some good numbers through the door, but we weren't quite selling out yet. Anyway, I'd gone home because I'd just come down for this horrible, nasty virus and I was exhausted and just felt crook and and I just I don't know, feeling away but homesick. And it was all about And anyway, we woke up the next morning to a five star review in The Times and it was you know, it was someone who doesn't often come and review the French shows, but it was Libby Purvs, one of the main theater reviewers so normally you know, reviewing down in London and those sorts of things, and she gave us by star. She was clearly a dog lover, which really landed. She played into our hands. But it was just this moment of oh my goodness, and we're on the front of the paper and everything. We you know, woke up to this really unexpected high from feeling kind of you know, it felt crashingly low the night before, So that will always sit with me as a as a pretty special moment that suddenly our funny, super specific rural comedy from New Zealand had actually been really warmly received in the UK.
Yes, and deservedly post up on Life, I love it. I think, yeah, it's it is such a unique thing, and I'm interested in probably beyond the film which we've talked about, and perhaps another tour of your current show. What's the What does the future look like for you creatively in both spaces because there will be some changes over time, and obviously COVID will have had a bit of an impact as well on both the creative process and the performance in both arts.
What does that look like for you in the next felve months?
Yeah, well, we certainly do. We the film, funnily enough, has come before we thought, if you know what I mean, we actually were planning a TV show and we got this film opportunity. So sure, okay that we still have you know, scripts and plans for a for more of a kind of sketch comedy TV show of the dog characters and things, and we have lofty ambitions that that will go. You know, it could be sort of franchised perhaps, you know the way the office was and you know picked up around the world. You know, everyone can play dogs global takeover that kind of thing. So certainly we will keep pushing that. I mean, Emma and I are very very lucky in that we work well together and you know, I really complimentary kind of comedy and performers, I guess. But also she's one of my dearest, dearest best friends, and so I can't see the working relationship ending really, which is pretty cool. And then you're with my art. It's a funny one. I feel like I haven't properly sort of set with it for ages to really push it, and I think that that is definitely there on the horizon for me. So but it's one of those things. I'm like, I can paint forever, and I don't feel like I have to crack on and do it now, whereas I do. There's sort of a momentum with the Butcher's Box that we want to keep on with it and you know, keep creating while there is an interest. But then certainly with my art, I'm like, I will always do that. You know, it's always going to be a creative outlet. That fills me with joy, and so I'll just do it all the day.
I die amazing, amazing, I am.
One thing that just comes to mind, actually, is how do we and our listeners support you, because both of what you're doing is quite well, it's creative, but so it's different, and it's sort of you know, you're selling something like a product, and you go follow the face page and buy our thing.
You're very unique in both.
Accounts, So how do we support your co propper basically?
Thank you? Well, yeah, absolutely, I mean I guess yeah, as you say. Instagram and Facebook, Amelia Guild is my handle on that and so anything that I'm doing will be updated there, and it certainly helps. The more people that know, the more people that can share and spread the word. But yeah, the Bitch's Box, which I know is a problematic title in itself, but we will keep forging on as long as we can. The company's office didn't like that, so we have a different for that. But we I think it's just we do need to be quite you know, front footed. We probably aren't in the rural community. We don't sort of share and push it out there as much as because I don't know, I feel like we tend to sort of you want to sit back and let things speak for themselves. But anytime you can get the word out there of what we're doing or follow, like, comment, subscribe. No we don't have a YouTube channel, sorry, but when we have the movie, please come, please come along and just yeah, enjoy the thing that we've made, but also enjoy your community and catching up with your neighbors. And yeah, hopefully we create a reason for you guys to do that.
I love it. When do you think the movie might be hitting screens? Rightly?
Certainly plan to have it out this year, at the other end of this year. So, I mean, there's a few things that need to come together, but that is absolutely the intention by let's say early summer.
Love it, Love it. Amelia.
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I liked you immediately when I saw your red boots on the Business Awards evening, and I like you even more the more time I spend with you. It's just a real privilege to talk through your life and your creative pursuits and actually just explore some of these really funny, fun little stories that have made up your success. So thank you for being an inspiration in a space that's quite unknown really and probably not put forward maybe enough in the community, but I just yeah, having a bit of laugh and enjoy is just fantastic.
Thanks so much, and it's so it's so appreciated to be sort of recognized for the things you know that I love doing and to yeah, for spreading the word. So thank you.
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