I wanted to make Name Me Lawand because, really, Lawands personality.

He's got this sort of magic quality about him that I just thought, if I'm getting this feeling from Lawand and, you know, he was ten at the time.

And his sort of determination, and his explosive personality, if that's inspiring me, I wanted to get that on screen.

My style of filmmaking is the, “I don't want to look at someone from a distance.

I want to rather be right in their POV, and I want to see the world that they see.” I wanted the audience to really understand that journey of Lawand being quite a frustrated kid, not being able to communicate, not being able to express himself, to then the joy of Lawand being able just to make his friends laugh.

Seeing Lawand begin by being quite an isolated, frustrated kid to then what happened to his personality when he felt like he had sort of found his people and found his place was just so special to witness.

It proved to me that when an individual finds somewhere that they are accepted and celebrated, sort of anything is possible.