Samya De Meo is a Kenyan-Italian actor and voiceover artist and proud resident of Earls Court since 2014. Short film credits include “2025: The Long Hot Winter” directed by Jake Lancaster and winner of The Earls Court Film Festival 2019. Her appearances are also connected with the official selection of Aesthetica Film Festival 2020. Sha also starred in “The Atlas of False Desires” directed by Nathan Su, winner of Best Short Film for Sci-Fi London 2017.
I am an actor and voiceover artist, and have lived in the Earl’s Court neighbourhood since 2014. I started my acting journey here when I joined the Earls Courtiers amateur dramatic theatre groups, and in 2015, took to the stage as Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. That is where I met the Film Earl’s Court team and we became friends.
I remember that year was the first year of the all film festival – I was so excited about it. I remember thinking, Wow, I must live in the best part of London. There’s so much happening here! In 2019, Caroline asked me if I wanted to be part of one of the short films that they were producing. 2025: The Long Hot Winter. The climate changes storyline really appealed to me. The director, Jake Lancaster, was amazing. The producer was great, Alastair Hope Morley as well. The film went on to win best Earls Short that year, and last year it was part of the official selection for Aesthetica, which is a BAFTA qualifying festival. So it was so exciting to be a part of that. This year, I am also part of the submission panel for the festival.
I’ve seen it grow. I’ve been part of it first as an audience member, then as one of the actors and now kind of like part of the submission judging panel. And I’ve absolutely loved every minute of it….every second, and I hope I get to do more.
I love short films. The beauty of short films is (and obviously) the pace of the commercial films is much faster. But I feel the difference with short movies is that you really become a family. You get to know everybody on set, all the actors, everybody behind the scenes. It really becomes everybody’s baby in that movie. And even kind of like the roles that you go up for as well, you know, it just feels like it’s a beautiful collaboration of wanting to create something special.
So for me, there’s a lot of magic and short films, and they’re so hard to do. Also, they’re really hard to do because in a minute, two minutes, five minutes….you’ve got to tell a story. So there’s definitely an art to it. And the short films that the film festival has produced so far, I think, have absolutely nailed that, and it’s really not an easy feat.
