From campus to cinema screens: Alumni-directed film adaptation hits the big screen this month

Tina Gharavi brings Virginia Woolf’s 1919 novel to life with a star-studded cast

As well as being directed by a Newcastle University graduate, many production staff and extras hailed from campus, and alumni will certainly recognise some iconic North East landmarks which were used as filming locations!

Ahead of the cinema release, we sat down with Tina to hear about what it was like bringing a star-studded cast to the region, how she first fell in love with the film industry and how she juggles directing and teaching students on campus.

A love letter to the North East

Born in Iran and educated in the US, Gharavi came to Newcastle for the first time in 1998 to teach media production in the ex-mining town of Ashington. Joining the teaching staff at Newcastle University in 2004, Tina graduated with a PhD in 2014 and continues to teach our students today alongside her filming commitments. Her favourite thing about teaching on campus, Tina tells us, is her students:

“I really love teaching. I love it when I see someone get the bug for something or find their voice and have some confidence in themselves. For me, that's such an incredible privilege. And I will never get bored of that.”

As a filmmaker, Tina is known for her approach in centring outsiders, rebels and misfits, and her directorial film debut I Am Nasrine – about two Iranian refugees creating a new home in Newcastle- was nominated for a BAFTA. But what also links many of her films, Tina admits, is that they are “love letters to the North East”. Tina told us:

“I’m passionate about the region. I worked hard to convince the producers of Night and Day to abandon shooting the film in Dublin and bring it to Newcastle. This wasn’t just so I could walk to set every day, though! I knew that the North East was a hidden gem of locations.”

Notable sights in the region that feature in Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day include Neville’s Hall – the home to the Mining Institute near Central Station – Beamish Open Air Museum, the Lit & Phil and Ryhope Engines Museum. Tina admits that “in early production stages, it was also hoped that Newcastle University’s campus could also be used for some scenes, but unfortunately, scheduling clashes made this impossible.”

Tina’s alma mater still plays a big role in the production, though. Many students gained valuable work experience on set. Tina’s Director’s Assistant, Poppy Wreford Brown, is a graduate of the School of English, and even some academic colleagues from campus entered the spotlight to star as extras, including colleague from the School of English, Dr Fionnghuala Sweeney – who eagle-eyed alumni may spot as a supporting suffragette!  

Leading a stellar cast on a ‘crazy journey’

The script for Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day was written by Justine Waddell a number of years ago, and when the production company were looking for a director, Tina was top of their list. She told us:

“I was excited to be involved from the outset as I saw it as an opportunity to re-lens the time period and highlight the more difficult and complicated stories – the plucky women, queer people, Black people – that are often omitted. Yet Virginia herself lived next to a Black barrister on Bloomsbury Square.”

The film isn’t a faithful adaptation of Woolf’s 1919 novel, Tina admits. It features Easter eggs of the marginalised characters often left out of period dramas that indicate what the London Virginia was living in was really like.  But the adaptation still feels true to Woolf’s sensibility, Tina feels. She said:

“Virginia Woolf was a Modernist. She was always thinking about how society was evolving and how differently to tell stories. So, it made sense to make a film that was perhaps more radical in the way that it told its tale. Hopefully, you'll see that when you watch the movie, there's efforts to be more conceptually experimental in the story.”

Tina reached out to some of the stars of the film by writing letters to them, sharing her vision and why she wanted them to feature. “I guess they were up for the challenge!” she laughs.

The protagonist Katharine Hilbery is played by American actress Haley Bennett, who features alongside comedy legends Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders, Sally Phillips and Jack Whitehall. Lily Allen also stars as suffragette Mary Datchet. Tina said:

“It’s really a process of asking people to have faith in you as you lead this crazy band of people to do this monumental task. But the cast were dreamboats to work with.

 

“I cannot tell you how wonderful Jennifer Saunders is. So talented, so funny, and so generous with me as a relatively young director. The entire crew knew what was at stake with an oddly shaped project like this. I was very lucky that the cast had faith in me.”

Falling in love with film on the New Jersey Shore

Gharavi’s first taste of the film industry came while she was still in High School in New Jersey, when she was hired as the Production Designer’s Assistant for a Hollywood movie being shot nearby. “It was a terrible movie,” Tina recalls, smiling, “but it was such a fantastic experience to see the machinery of making a film.”

Before then, though, she was an avid film fan and cinema goer. She said:

“I knew how transformative cinema was for me. It can change the way people see themselves and others. Looking back, the films that had the biggest impact on me weren’t necessarily great artistic films – E.T., Poltergeist, WarGames, Trading Places … the mass appeal popcorn films gave me a sense that there was another way that life could be, and how important seeing yourself represented is. Films are wish-fulfilment."

Tina also recognised there was a “poverty of stories” growing up, with experiences like hers not represented. It was this that drove her to start making films of her own. Speaking on breaking into the industry, Gharavi said:

“You have to be prepared to do the work, and you have to have some cleverness about figuring out what excellence is in the job that you're doing and advance yourself. You know, the best people I've seen in the industry, they are never satisfied. They never feel like they've arrived. They've always been pushing themselves.

 

“It can be really difficult. It’s expensive, there’s nepotism, there’s reasons that people don’t let you in. But you might as well try, because life is very short. My big mantra with my students is, what will you do with your one short and precious life (credit to Mary Oliver)? Follow your dreams!”

The privilege of a filmmaker and next projects

With Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day in the can and a premiere date in the diary, Gharavi would be forgiven for giving herself a bit of a break. But that’s not the case. Alongside her teaching commitments on campus, Tina has just returned from Cannes, where she has been recruiting support for her next venture.

Forough: Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season is a biopic about Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. Written and directed by Gharavi, the project also has acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson on board as executive producer.

“It's a job that doesn't have any two days being the same. And the other thing is it's just a precarious, precarious industry,” Tina admits. “The fact that I am allowed to make films is quite remarkable. There aren’t many people who have that chance. I do realise how privileged I am. I mean, I work pretty damn hard for it as well, but it’s a nice place to be.”

Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day is available to watch in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from 19 June 2026. 

Image credits: M Pinder, West End, Bridge + Tunnel