For the first time, June Gibbons will tell her own story, in her own words, in new BBC Sounds podcast, June: Voice of a Silent Twin.
In 1982, June and Jennifer Gibbons were the youngest women to be sent to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital after a crime spree that saw them cause hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage in arson, vandalism and theft over a period of five days. During their time in Broadmoor, they would come face-to-face with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals including the Yorkshire Ripper and Ronnie Kray. They were aged just 19.
Throughout her life, the story of June Gibbons and her twin Jennifer, has been told countless times. It’s been the subject of documentaries, films, books and musicals, but their story has always been told by someone else. The new eight-part podcast sees June setting out her own first-hand account to reveal the truth.
In 1982, June and Jennifer Gibbons were the youngest women to be sent to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital after a crime spree that saw them cause hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage in arson, vandalism and theft over a period of five days. During their time in Broadmoor, they would come face-to-face with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals including the Yorkshire Ripper and Ronnie Kray. They were aged just 19.
Throughout her life, the story of June Gibbons and her twin Jennifer, has been told countless times. It’s been the subject of documentaries, films, books and musicals, but their story has always been told by someone else. The new eight-part podcast sees June setting out her own first-hand account to reveal the truth.
- 12/25/2023
- Podnews.net
Polish helmer Agnieszka Smoczyńska fought for Tamara Lawrance to be a part of “The Silent Twins,” she said at Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
“We had two options: [hire] one actress who plays both characters, but there is no chemistry, or find actual twins, which was not possible. We had Letitia Wright, who was this amazing actress and ‘Black Panther’ star, and then we found Tamara,” she said.
The story was inspired by real-life identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, who only communicated with each other.
“They are not that similar, so what do you do? You make a decision. And I knew she was the one, because it was all about this tension between them.”
Smoczyńska opened up about difficult choices and her career during an exclusive masterclass for 10 young filmmakers selected for Efp’s Future Frames – Generation Next of European Cinema.
“I really wanted to make my movie. Not somebody else’s movie,...
“We had two options: [hire] one actress who plays both characters, but there is no chemistry, or find actual twins, which was not possible. We had Letitia Wright, who was this amazing actress and ‘Black Panther’ star, and then we found Tamara,” she said.
The story was inspired by real-life identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, who only communicated with each other.
“They are not that similar, so what do you do? You make a decision. And I knew she was the one, because it was all about this tension between them.”
Smoczyńska opened up about difficult choices and her career during an exclusive masterclass for 10 young filmmakers selected for Efp’s Future Frames – Generation Next of European Cinema.
“I really wanted to make my movie. Not somebody else’s movie,...
- 7/7/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
How Tamara Lawrance Found Her Voice In ‘The Silent Twins’ & Hot Crime Noir Series ‘Get Millie Black’
Exclusive: Silence has been golden for Tamara Lawrance who, paired with Wakanda Forever’s Letitia Wright in The Silent Twins, won the best joint lead performance trophy at the recent BIFA awards.
In director Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s picture they portray inseparable twins, Jennifer and June Gibbons, born to Barbadian parents in 1963. They made an unusual pact at an early age to remain speechless except for communicating with each other in an indecipherable dialect of their own design.
It’s a contrast to a TV drama Lawrance will star in next year, in which she plays a character with more than enough to say. She’s referring to the title role in Channel 4 and HBO’s six-part prestige series Get Millie Black, a crime noir thriller set in Kingston, Jamaica and the UK, created by writer Marlon James whose novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won him the 2015 Man Booker prize.
In director Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s picture they portray inseparable twins, Jennifer and June Gibbons, born to Barbadian parents in 1963. They made an unusual pact at an early age to remain speechless except for communicating with each other in an indecipherable dialect of their own design.
It’s a contrast to a TV drama Lawrance will star in next year, in which she plays a character with more than enough to say. She’s referring to the title role in Channel 4 and HBO’s six-part prestige series Get Millie Black, a crime noir thriller set in Kingston, Jamaica and the UK, created by writer Marlon James whose novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won him the 2015 Man Booker prize.
- 12/19/2022
- by Baz Bamigboye
- Deadline Film + TV
The Silent Twins is a new film based on the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin sisters born in 1963 to parents of Caribbean descent, and whose family lived mainly in Wales. Persecuted at school from an early age—primarily due to the color of their skin and idiosyncratic behavior—the twins gradually withdrew from the world, speaking only to each other (in a combination of sped-up English and Bajan Creole that made it difficult for others to understand), duplicating each other’s movements and behavior, and generally remaining non-communicative with others around them.
While their behavior seemed bizarre to observers, the Gibbons sisters fostered a creative life together, often in their shared bedroom, in which they made art, staged plays with handmade dolls and toys, and dreamed up stories and songs. While both of them wrote several works of fiction, only June’s full-length novel, The Pepsi-Cola Addict,...
While their behavior seemed bizarre to observers, the Gibbons sisters fostered a creative life together, often in their shared bedroom, in which they made art, staged plays with handmade dolls and toys, and dreamed up stories and songs. While both of them wrote several works of fiction, only June’s full-length novel, The Pepsi-Cola Addict,...
- 9/19/2022
- by Don Kaye
- Den of Geek
At first, it might seem strange that experimental Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska chose for her third film a social justice drama about a pair of Black British twins and amateur novelists locked up for petty crimes. But the filmmaker’s esoteric style — “The Lure” was a bloody, lesbian take on “The Little Mermaid” — makes more sense once we get to meet June Gibbons (Letitia Wright) and her sister Jennifer (Tamara Lawrence). Identical twins born 10 minutes apart, June and Jennifer invent an entire language only for each other — and are despondent when anyone else tries to invade their fun. Smoczyńska illustrates the eccentric stories they tell each other with stop-motion puppets, musical montages and, in one Andy Warhol-inspired set piece, a deep pool of Pepsi washing ’round a living room.
Where “The Silent Twins” fails, however, is in tying that childlike expressionism to the stark grimness of the Gibbons’ real lives.
Where “The Silent Twins” fails, however, is in tying that childlike expressionism to the stark grimness of the Gibbons’ real lives.
- 5/26/2022
- by Adam Solomons
- Indiewire
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