I Love You, Sunshine

A short film About Grief

When her dad takes his own life, a young girl must learn to cope with her grief and guilt while discovering that a parent’s love endures even after they’re gone.

The Story

The story centres on nine year old Milly and the loving relationship she has with her dad. But when he takes his own life and Milly is left asking why? Why if he loved her did he leave her?


I Love You, Sunshine tackles grief head on – Milly is forced to deal with big emotions – guilt, deep hurt and anger – which culminate in her beginning a journey of understanding and acceptance. It’s the story of one little girl dealing with these huge emotions at a time when she’s just learning how to grow up.
This is Milly’s story. It’s for all the Millys out there.

CReative Vision

Marcos Avlontis, Director

The child’s perspective is absolutely key to the telling of this story. It is true that we all can internalise the pressures of the world and blame ourselves for things outside our control, but it’s especially so in children. To reflect this, I will represent that internalisation and self-doubt through an evolving visual style.

During the happy opening scenes, we will frame both Millie and her dad together in the shot – seeing them as a unit; two pieces of a complete whole. After his suicide, the compositions will become tighter as Millie’s grief narrows her worldview.

Everything will be shot from Millie’s height– keeping her neatly in frame, but leaving the adults on the periphery, often only half in shot. As Millie’s sense of guilt increases, the compositions will become even tighter with adults and locations barely featuring in frame at all, showing how her grief is isolating her.

It’s only when Milly starts to process her experiences and develop coping mechanisms, that the compositions will open out again until, by the end, we frame Millie and her mother together in shot in the same way as with her father, showing the fulfilment of her journey.

While this is a stylised technique, it will be implemented slowly and subtly to draw the audience into her mind without realising. A naturalistic approach to the acting, production design and lighting will compliment this and act as a reminder that this could happen anywhere to anyone.

As a team, we hope this film will highlight the often overlooked tragedies that can affect us without warning.

The script, backed by Addy’s meticulous research and charity consultations, has gifted us a valuable opportunity to do this and to help families in similar situations explore their own grief.
What drew me to this film wasn’t just that the script tackled these issues, but that it shows them through the eyes of those left behind. Already, this felt like a fresh angle on the subject matter but by narrowing the focus even further to the eyes of a child, Addy’s script presents a unique creative perspective.

This story will always be relevant. Struggles with mental health are a constant feature in the human experience and the more we discuss and explore these issues, the better equipped we will be to deal with them on a societal and personal level. More specifically, the steady increase in male suicide shows that this film is timely, as well as relevant.

Creative Team

Marcos Avlontis

Director

Drawn to creative story-telling since childhood, I gained a BA Hons in Creative Writing from Leeds University in 2008.

I quickly realised that filmmaking was my calling, and directing drama has been my passion and aspiration ever since.

In the early years, I wrote, directed and shot many short films and creative projects. My main source of income has been videography and cinematography. While directing narrative fiction has taken a backseat, for financial reasons, I have directed many corporate and commercial projects, which have allowed me to develop my skills and network.

I am a keen collaborator and, as such, I have developed, written and/or produced many of the projects I’ve worked on as DP. The following list of credits is for projects where I took a directorial role:

Commercial

  • Our Future – Digital ad campaign – (Strata Homes, 2024)
  • Home – Brand Film & TVC – (Strata Homes, 2023)
  • Strata Stories – Video Series (Strata Homes, 2022-2023)
  • Avenue – Brand Film (Avenue Furniture, 2022)
  • Malanj Woven – Brand Film (Malanj Woven, 2022)
  • Ready For Change – Brand Film (Strata Homes, 2021)

Documentary

  • It Makes a Difference – Charity film (B:Friend, 2023)
  • StorySLAM for Schools – Charity film (StorySLAM, 2013)
  • Narrative Fiction
  • The Trunk (Mind of Marcos, 2017)
  • That Was Peter Crowe (RicoMark, 2014)
  • A Day In The Life (RicoMark, 2012)

Awards

  • BFI Short Film Fund 2025, longlisted,
  • CenterFrame Selects, shortlised by Michael Jamin

Addy Farmer

Writer

Addy is a children’s author and screenwriter. She is published by Walker and Random House. She helped to establish the SCWBI in the UK. She is a trustee for North Lincolnshire Children’s Literacy Trust.

Her latest series – ICKY WORLD – with Hachette is about the importance of ‘icky’ stuff to the planet’s ecology – mud, slime, fungus and poo. Guess which is the most popular?! GRANDAD’S BENCH for Walker was a bittersweet story but her fiction sweet spot is writing funny stuff for 7 – 9s with bags of heart. Her latest series, MERCURY JONES, about a supervillain who yearns for as many friends as a superhero, is very silly but is as well an exploration of friendship.

Her next book will be called BRILLIANT BOGS (Wayland 2026) and is written in partnership with the Wildlife Trusts.

Addy was commissioned to work with a heritage railway on a narrative nonfiction picture book about an abandoned engine, LITTLE PEAT (spoiler – it has a happy ending). The geek in her loves the research involved in her nonfiction work and she has honed the art of making often difficult concepts understandable for 6plus! Her skill in writing fiction in various forms – picture book texts, chapter books and middle grade – gives her an expert understanding of the demands of telling stories for children.

Two of her picture books, A BAGFUL OF STARS and the Arts Council funded, A PLACE CALLED HOME, were adapted for the stage by Rhubarb Theatre. Addy crowdfunded a children’s book, I LOVE YOU SUNSHINE, in partnership with Child Bereavement UK, about losing a parent to suicide. The story was animated by Rhubarb and the project won a place at the Disrupt Festival in 2022. The live action short is now a project in development.

She won the Hachette Writing North prize for her middle grade, folklore adventure, THE EMPTY GIRL. She was longlisted for her middle grade, supernatural funny THE DANGEROUS DEAD. Her middle grade story, WILFREDA AND THE WERECAT, was shortlisted for the Darley Anderson middle grade funny award.

Her ongoing children’s screenwriting projects have a focus on sustainability, community and being hilarious for the 0-6 and 6-9 age groups.

Addy is part of the LSF Talent Campus 8.0 screenwriting course. She recently gained a place on the New Writing North Comedy writers’ room workshop with Saima Ferdows. Together with her co-writer, she also writes a fish-out-of-water comedy series for grown ups called COMMUNITY FARM.

Judith Bunting

Producer

Judith Bunting is screenwriter, moving into drama after >20 years as an award-winning documentary director and executive producer.

In 2025, her first screenplay won Best Writer at the Liverpool Indie Awards and Best First Time Writer at the Japan Script Awards. Her second script, a TV Pilot, reached the final of C21 Script Awards.

With I LOVE YOU, SUNSHINE, Judith will combine her practical production experience and budget management with her understanding of story. This is her first project as a drama producer.

Judith cut her teeth at BBC Specialist Factual, as researcher, director, and executive producer. Here, she learned to craft gripping stories on paper and screen, how to pace and balance story-detail with emotion, and how not to waste money while you put it all together.

As executive producer, Judith has overseen programmes for BBCs 1, 2, and 3, Discovery and National Geographic, bringing in great shows on schedule and on budget. Her career highlight was producing the 3½ hour BBC Three event, The Operation, which won record audiences for the channel, and an RTS Best Programme Award.

After taking a career break, Judith joined Deaf-led company, Flashing Lights Media, where she led the team to create five series of CBeebies’ BSL poetry show Magic Hands. She later went on to be elected as MEP for the South of East of England.

  • 2000, The Secret Life of Twins, BBC1 – 7.8m audience
  • 2001, Superhuman, BBC 2, Director, Science et Image, Sante Award.
  • 2003-2006, Body Hits, BBC 3, Wellcome Trust Best Series, Best Programme Awards.
  • 2004, Breast Cancer, The Operation, BBC3, RTS Award
  • 2008, The Neanderthal Code, NatGeo Grierson Nomination
  • 2012, Magic Hands, shortlisted for Broadcast Award’s Best Children’s Series

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Contact Us

Email: hello@ILoveYouSunshine.org