Overview
Screenplay
“Winds” is a period drama that not only tells the story of Lady Constance Lytton and her sister Lady Emily Lytton. But it tells the story of Lady Emily’s best friend, a mixed race nurse Lyta and the relationship she has with their brother in law Sir Richard. She has to deal with racism and discrimination that tears the family apart.
INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS
LOGLINE:
A nurse of African origin, falls in love with an aristocrat and suffers racism and discrimination, against the backdrop of the Suffragette movement in Edwardian England. And how a family is torn apart by passion, deception and forbidden love.
Background of Lady Constance:
This British historical drama, inspired by true events, deals with the life of Lady Constance Lytton. Lady Constance was quiet, shy and physically weak. Early in life she would prefer to leave political matters to the men. Her aristocratic title meant that the authority treated her kindly, after all she was the daughter of a Viceroy and the Earl of Lytton. Her brother was a member of the House of Lords.
SCREENPLAY OVERVIEW:
Set in the turmoil of 1909 England, when women’s rights challenged the Edwardian morality that still gripped British society. ‘Winds’ tells the story of two sisters who could not be more different than Lady Constance and Lady Emily Lytton.
Emily is high-spirited and unconventional; her appearance quickly brings to mind the new emancipated woman. Constantly stifled by the rigid customs of the times, her inherent passion for life takes her to the forefront of the British suffrage movement.
Our story opens at a suffragette rally where, once again, Emily and Lyta had been arrested. Not surprisingly, Emily’s suffrage activities are a constant source of conflict within the family. Set during the same period as Downton Abbey, we see class barriers break down amid social upheaval and turmoil. You see a family torn apart by passion, deception and forbidden love. Passion and forbidden love are the story of Sir Richard, Lady Constance’s brother-in-law, and Emily’s best friend, nurse Lyta. A suffragette born on the continent of mixed race. Interracial relationships were unheard of, specially within the classes. Lady Constance’s husband, Sir Sinclair, lies, deceits and does everything he can to break his own brother’s relationship. Suddenly, after all these years of marriage, Lady Constance believes her husband to be a stranger.
Lady Constance’s growing involvement with the movement also conflicts with her manipulative husband, who believes that men are meant to lead and women to follow. Even when Lady Constance was arrested for her militant activities on behalf of the suffragette movement, she was released.
After one of her arrest, Lady Constance gives the police a false name, Jane Warton. She then refuses to pay the fine and is sentenced to three months in prison. Lady Constance goes on a hunger-strike and is being brutally force fed.
SCREENPLAY STRENGTHS:
This screenplay is a strikingly accurate depiction of the challenges that women faced for the right to vote. The lack of respect. This story is about the women’s journey to effect change.
It is so striking of what is happening right now all over the world. In the US, abortion rights are now denied in some States. What women do with their bodies are now in the hands of politicians. In the Arab world they can’t even wear their faces and hair out, they put them in prison or killed.
Women are well over 50% of the world’s population, but we are still considered second class citizens, if citizens at all.
