Most people ease their way into a new job, but for her film debut, the musical provocateur Shygirl had a different idea. Last summer, she signed on to Getaway, an enticing, full-frontal short film about a man whose heartbreak-healing venture into nature intersects with a sexual awakening. Adopting her government name, Blane Muise, she’s both an executive producer and one of its lead stars. “The film explores the same themes I delve into with my music, and the team felt like such a perfect fit for me,” she says—among them writer Harry Redding, director Aaron Kilercioglu, and producer Francesco Loy Bell. “Working on a film felt like a refreshing change.”
Premiering at SXSW London this week, Getaway focuses on Daniel (Michael Workéyè), a lad who runs away from his problems onto a rural campsite, hoping that, in that isolation, he’ll find himself. What he doesn’t realize is that the campsite is also a hot spot for swingers. And after a very naked shower encounter with Fred and Willow (Muise, George Smale), a couple looking for a third, the reality of what he’s stumbled into sets in. It’s a slightly surreal, semi-horror, semi-comedic short about getting over a breakup in a big baptism of fire—replete with loads of nude extras.
Here, Kilercioglu and Loy Bell tell us a bit about the film’s beginnings, working with Shy, and the ins and outs of making a movie starring people with their bits out.
Douglas Greenwood: Aaron, tell me about how this film began for you.
Aaron Kilercioglu: Harry Redding, who wrote the film, was inspired by an eerie solo camping trip he took last year. While not exactly autobiographical, the characters and world of that campsite inspired him to write this story. When he shared the first draft with me, I found it resonated with me in unexpected ways—from thinking about my experiences as an outsider in the British countryside to my dissatisfaction with the way in which desire is often portrayed on screen. Together we wanted to craft a journey of sexual self-acceptance that is full of messiness,contradiction, and silliness.
Francesco, when did you get into it?
Francesco Loy Bell: The first time I heard about Getaway was actually last summer, when Aaron and Harry were chatting about it at the pub. “Horror-comedy in a swingers campsite” is a pretty good elevator pitch, and the more they told me, the more I could immediately visualize the aesthetic and world they were trying to build: saturated, very British, quite camp (literally), and rooted in genre convention—which is something I love. This was when the film was just a script, but it instantly felt like a really tantalizing project to get involved in.
Can you talk me through the logistics of shooting masses of nude people? How did you source the extras?
Francesco: The whole shoot was a really happy, familial vibe, which obviously made a potentially tricky scene like that one run really smoothly on the day. The extras were incredible. We sourced most of them through a casting website, and they were honestly a bunch of legends—super lovely, ultra professional, and they killed it. Many of them had prior experience being nude on camera which obviously facilitated a pretty smooth shoot, but it was one guy’s first-ever acting job, so hats off to him… fiery initiation!
Aaron: You’d be surprised at the amount of people who are happy to spend their weekend running around naked in front of a camera. And the people we ended up casting were such team players—open to everything we threw at them. We also made sure to work with an intimacy coordinator and to be strict about having closed sets when there was any form of nudity or intimacy.
Francesco, talk to me about Shy’s involvement. This is her first time acting. How did you get the script to her, and what made her say yes?
Francesco: Shy was brilliant throughout the whole process. I had known her for a couple of years through my good friend George Smale, and when I read the script, the pair immediately came to mind as the perfect people to play Fred and Willow. Shy has this amazing mix of intrinsic magnetism and gentleness that felt perfect for the dynamic between the trio, and she worked really well as a foil to George’s similarly charming but slightly more chaotic Fred.
We discussed at length the importance of Willow, in particular, feeling comforting to Daniel as he slowly opens up to the potential of sexual exploration, and Shy managed to straddle the line between that and potential romantic partner perfectly. She also executive produced the film through her company, Pineapple Soup, and was really hands-on throughout the process. The film shares quite a lot of themes—selfhood, sexual openness, lack of shame—with Shy’s music, so it felt like a collaboration made in heaven.
The film feels a little like the beginning of something very scary. Like if Midsommar were set on a swinger’s campsite. Aaron, can you talk about how the idea of peril and the unknown ties in with the idea of heartbreak?
Aaron: Breakups confront us with ourselves in blunt and brutal ways. In a way, their aftermath mirrors the arc of a traditional horror: the unknown is often more terrifying than the thing itself. For Daniel, the film’s protagonist, this is all about shame—of his desires, his sexuality, his self. So it made sense for us to treat Daniel’s emotional journey of overcoming these feelings as the guide to our filmmaking style. We wanted the film to capture the liberatory power of placing yourself out of your comfort zone, of overcoming the peril of the unknown, of being open to your own pleasure.
“Getaway” premieres at SXSW London 2025 as part of the Dream States strand on 4th June. Tickets available here.
PHOTOGRAPHY Oliver Bell and Lucy Lay