When she had snuck in well after eleven o’clock, her mum and dad had been on opposite sides of the couch sipping their respective glasses of wine, the tension in the air thick with hurt and disdain. Her dad had been curled over his laptop, deeply absorbed in some convoluted spreadsheet. Evie knew how much Anna had hated it when he’d worked late into the night. Anna had said Peter needed to stand up to his boss at the accounting firm, who, in her opinion, was a right lazy bludger. She’d sworn his long hours had led to his mood swings and spurts of depression, which had sometimes got so bad during deadlines that he’d had to take meds for it. Turned out her mum was right. After the divorce, Peter had found a job with more normal hours, and his mental health had seemed to be better for it.

‘Don’t stress, I’ll email you my notes again,’ Ben said, returning his attention to the lecture.

Evie waved him off and began to take her own notes when, suddenly, something the lecturer said caught her attention.

‘It’s not the critics that drive Hollywood. And producers know it. They’ve got to please the people, or the people won’t come.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ Evie whispered to Ben. ‘You can’t only produce the films that people want to see. Like Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”’

‘Clever, but I don’t think the same always applies to entertainment,’ Ben replied softly.

‘It’s not as black and white as that,’ murmured Evie, remembering suddenly that they’d had this argument before.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘It totally isn’t! As we’ve seen recently. I mean, as I am sure will happen, filmmakers will soon realise that they need to challenge people and make them uncomfortable, in order to prompt change. Diversifying film is a crucial part of this. Otherwise, everything will just remain stagnant.’

A student in the row behind them whispered for them to be quiet.

You have a lot to say all of a sudden, Ben typed on his laptop.

And what’s wrong with that? Evie typed in response.

‘Time and place,’ Ben said, jabbing his finger towards their notes.

It was all coming back to Evie now. This was one of the many conversations that had ultimately led to them launching their podcast. Young university hopefuls, determined to champion films they believed mattered while having a laugh, and, because Ben was involved, a bowl of homemade pasta. When Evie deferred university and her writing efforts petered off, it was the podcast that had kept her challenged and engaged with ideas around film and made her feel like she was still being creative.