The Meeting (2025)
Film, 17 mins.
A film by Jyll Bradley.
Written, Directed and Produced by Jyll Bradley
Music composed by Linda Buckley
Sound design by Jonquil Panting
Edited by Will Martin
Filmed by Emma Dalesman
Sound Recording by Adam Gutch
Voices – M.R.: Claire Rushbrook; J: Jyll Bradley
Filmed with kind permission of the Trustees of Kew.
Generously supported by David Maclean
The Meeting is the second in Jyll Bradley’s trilogy of films exploring her experience of childhood adoption. Whilst her first film M.R. (2021) explored the search for her birth mother in 1991, The Meeting (2025) unpacks their first meeting in 1992 in the Palm House, Kew Gardens, the location Bradley chose for this – and where the film is shot.
As with M.R., The Meeting uses ideas of light, structure and transparency to express the feeling of being ‘inside and outside’ at the same time, which is how Bradley describes her adoption experience. Both films intersect this with queerness and the youthful forming of creative identity. The Meeting paints a portrait of the reunion of birth mother and daughter and of the vast glasshouse which holds their story. Through the lush Eden-like tropical vegetation and sweeping arches two voices emerge revealing a story of loss, memory and societal pressure. The only figures seen are the gardeners in the background, silent witnesses to the event, quietly tending the space.