Joanna Hogg is sheltering in a shopping centre about two hours north of Rome. The British filmmaker has taken time out from her vacation to talk to Total Film about her new movie, ghostly tale The Eternal Daughter, which she seems pleased to do. ‘I'm not very good on holiday,’ she says. ‘I wish I was better at just relaxing, but I just can't do it.’ Still, it feels apt to speak during such an excursion, given The Eternal Daughter follows the story of a mother and her grown-up daughter holidaying in an isolated hotel where things really do go bump in the night.
The idea grew out of personal experience. From the age of 12, Hogg and her mother would go on short trips together, for a few days at a time, often venturing north of the border to attend the Edinburgh Festival. ‘We'd go and stay in a little hotel or a pub with rooms above it… We'd go and stay somewhere,’ she recalls. ‘And it
