For her debut short film Billie, Safi Tobi brings a sharp sense of humour to moments of discomfort, grief, and awkward human connection. Balancing comedy with emotional weight, the film feels both deeply personal and self-aware unafraid to poke fun at cinematic tropes while still taking its characters seriously.
Having previously worked on major productions including Ted Lasso, The Crown, and Napoleon, Safi steps into directing with a refreshingly candid perspective on filmmaking, collaboration, and the chaos of short-film production.
In this interview, she discusses finding her tone, drawing from lived experience, working with actors Gaia Wise and Rosie Day, and what it’s really like to shoot sixteen pages in two days.
Billie balances humour with heavier emotional themes. What drew you to that tone, and how did you approach writing it for a short-film format?
It was the first thing I ever wrote, and the original draft was quite different from what we ended up producing.
I think the genre I’m most drawn to is drama-comedy. I don’t think I could write a very serious drama. I just can’t take myself seriously enough. Even when something really bad is happening, there are usually little moments that, looking back, are kind of funny, depending on the situation.
Maybe one day I’ll try something more serious, but at the moment I really like that balance.
What was the initial spark or moment that inspired this story? Did Billie begin with a character, an idea, or something from your own experiences?
The character definitely came before the full plot because it was my first script, the story wasn’t very fully formed it was more of a concept. We actually shot a proof of concept beforehand just to get the vibe of it. We filmed in a shop in Basingstoke, which was good fun.
People sometimes think I’m in the film or that it’s based on my life because we look quite similar. It’s very dramatized, but there are little parts taken from my own experiences. That’s generally how I write I recall small moments and build something around them.
The scene where the woman comes up to Billie on the bench was taken from a time when I was upset on a park bench and people came up to me at the perfect wrong moment. Looking back, it’s actually quite funny and cinematic. I really enjoy taking little moments like that and reworking them.
I love the line “Everyone cool in movies has dead parents.” What inspired that line? Was it something you’d been wanting to comment on for a while?
It’s just a funny joke, isn’t it? Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Superman all these huge heroes just happen to have tragic backstories.
My mum isn’t dead, which she’d love me to clarify. She was a little upset when I told her that line was in the script. She’s actually in the film the childhood videos at the beginning are all me and my family. She’s alive and well.
It’s such a weird trope in hero stories, like that’s what it takes to be important or interesting. Obviously, that’s not the case I just thought it was funny to point out.
Gaia Wise and Rosie Day have great on-screen chemistry. How did you find them, and what about them made you feel they were right for these roles?
Me and Rosie actually went to school together, just at different times, which was a really weird coincidence.
I’d shot another short about women walking home at night, which my friend and photographer Stuart Bywater shared on his Instagram. Rosie followed me from that, so I sent her the original Billie script and she really wanted to do it.
She was already friends with Gaia and brought her along, which really helped the chemistry. They’re both incredibly professional and very good at what they do. As a first-time director, that made everything so much easier they’d already thought about their characters and asked questions well before the shoot.
On the day, I didn’t have to do a huge amount because they were so prepared.
You’ve worked as a COVID coordinator on major productions like One Day, Ted Lasso, and The Crown, and as a testing PA on Napoleon. What lessons from those sets did you bring into your directing style?
I worked in film and TV during COVID for about two years. There were some really great experiences, but also some bad ones, which is why I don’t really enjoy being on big sets anymore. That’s obviously quite disheartening.
What I did love was meeting people. Networking is so important I met so many of the crew for Billie on those sets and made friendships I hope will last a long time.
Before that, I worked on short films in art department and production design, which introduced me to a lot of people. My first bigger job was on I Came By, Babak Anvari’s film, and it was fascinating to see how things actually work behind the scenes. It’s not at all how you imagine it as a kid, but it was still a really fun experience.
Being around such large-scale productions, did you pick up anything big or small that influenced how you ran your own set for Billie?
It’s a completely different environment. On short films you shoot so much in such a short time, whereas big productions shoot very little each day.
My main hope was to create an environment where no one felt like crap which unfortunately happens a lot on big sets. But when it came to shooting, I was incredibly stressed.
It’s all a bit of a blur. I hope everyone had a nice time. We shot about sixteen pages in two days, with loads of location moves, which is obviously insane. In the future, I’d love to shoot for longer, but there’s only so much you can do.
Is it normally one take and then you move on?
Ideally, you’d get a few takes and a few different setups. But on the second day of Billie, we were so pushed for time that there were a couple of shots where we only had one take, or maybe two.
The scene where the ex-boyfriend comes into the shop was all done in one shot purely because we didn’t have time. That one was a happy accident.
What question would you like to be asked but never have been?
I’d like someone to ask me about how I write.
I don’t have many people in my friendship circle who write, and the people I’ve tried to write with have very different approaches. I tend to get everything out immediately, whereas other people plan very strategically which is probably the smarter way.
I don’t want to sound like I’m claiming to be a pioneer or anything, but my process is very instinctive, and I’d love to talk more about that.
What’s next for you after Billie any short films you can tease?
I’m writing a new short at the moment. I’ve finished the first draft I actually wrote most of it on a flight home. I’m hoping to shoot it next year.
Do you have a title for it yet?
No. I really struggle with titles. Billie is just called Billie, Blood Orange isn’t very imaginative either so I’m still figuring that part out.
Billie marks an assured and honest debut from Safi Tobi one that embraces imperfection, humour, and the strange cinematic potential of real life’s worst-timed moments. Her reflections on writing instinctively, fostering a supportive set, and learning through trial and error reveal a filmmaker more interested in emotional truth than polish for its own sake.
With a new short already in development, Tobi work suggests a director unafraid to experiment, trust her collaborators, and laugh at the messiness of the process. If Billie is any indication, her future films will continue to find meaning and comedy in unexpected places.