The ping of love

Communication in the pre-digital age was not for the impatient – keeping the landline free while anxiously awaiting a call, one’s heart leaping at the thunk of mail landing on the doormat – managing disappointment if a letter from loved one hadn’t arrived. 

And having to wait a whole day for the next post!

This emotional film written and directed by Joanna Nordahl, and produced by ANORAK, starts with a woman stirring to that reassuring, slightly celestial echoey ‘ping’ notification that a missive has arrived – a sound we can now enjoy several times in one hour thanks to instant messaging.

Tracing the communications between an extended family coping during the pandemic, A Family Diary covers a range of challenges – isolation, separation anxiety, travel chaos, homeschooling and, of course, health worries, here centred around the difficult realities of pregnancy and labour in lockdown.