Like Primer, Timecrimes or Safety Not Guaranteed, Andrew Legge’s LOLA is a low-fi sci-fi that teases audiences with time-travel tropes. In this case, 1940s sisters Martha (Stefanie Martini) and Thomasina (Emma Appleton) invent a machine – which they dub ‘LOLA’ – capable of intercepting radio waves from the future. Legge had already road-tested the idea, in a way, in his 2009 short The Chronoscope, about an Irish scientist who creates a device to look into the past.
Nevertheless, Legge felt a story examining what’s gone before was “dramatically more limited” by holding few surprises. “It’s difficult to drive a full feature.” Reversing the idea on LOLA, he adds: “The thing that really made me want to make the movie was the idea of these characters getting exposed to culture from the future, listening to music, seeing movies. That juxtaposition of these 1940s women getting punk rock influences… that made me think it would be a fun film to make.”