“Film is an aid to life”: Orla Smith and Kimia Ipakchi’s 'Tube Film'

A shot of the first journey in Tube Film.

On 25^th August 2025, Orla Smith took the tube on the London Underground for the first time in almost two years. Back in 2023, Orla had a horrible panic attack on the Central Line that prevented her from being able to use the underground again. 

After wanting to confront this fear for a while but struggling to set out the time to do so, Orla decided that the best motivation for her was to make a mid-length documentary film about it with the help of her friend Kimia to record the journey on a 20 year old camcorder. 

Tube Film begins mid conversation between Orla and Kimia, and with the help of the nostalgic camcorder, us as the audience immediately feels as though we are among friends. After outlining the intention and context of the film, we begin following Orla on her journey. 

A shot of Kimia and the camcorder.

Firstly, what I admire about this film is that from its beginning, neither Orla nor Kimia know if Orla will ultimately be able to make it on the Central Line; the main goal is just to get Orla on the underground full stop. This makes the film engrossing from the offset as no one knows how it will end (not even the filmmakers) and how far Orla will get in overcoming her very real and debilitating fear. Whether or not you have dealt with anxiety specifically, at some point in our lives we have all had fears and have (hopefully) made the decision to confront them, thus Tube Film not only becomes engrossing because of the ‘will she/won’t she’ factor but it also becomes widely relatable. 

Kimia does a great job in capturing the busier moments of Orla’s journey in addition to the quieter, perhaps even more tense, moments when the two of them are sat on the various trains as well as in asking Orla questions about how she is feeling and the specifics around her fear of the tube at appropriate moments. These points in the film offer us a very raw depiction of what it is like to deal with anxiety in real time as we see the changes in Orla’s body language and mood when she gets on the tube. Stereotypes around anxiety will often have us believe that to experience it is to be visibly panicking, sweating profusely and/or breathing quickly; whilst those symptoms can definitely be had, for lots of us that experience anxiety, our symptoms are often unnoticeable to the average person - we may just turn inward and become very quiet, which is what Orla explains her anxiety/panic attacks often look like. In this way, Tube Film helps to challenge stereotypes and offer more nuanced and honest depictions of anxiety to audiences. 

Honesty is another theme that becomes very prevalent in Tube Film. During the journey, Orla mentions often about the anger she feels towards other people in her life, mostly men, who are aware that they have issues but do not choose to resolve them. It’s a potent anger that you can feel seeping through the screen. A lot of this anger, it seems, stems from her experiences with her brother’s ill mental health and how his inability to help himself has “ruined” the lives of her parents and has been the cause of some of Orla’s own issues. In her own words she states in the film that “it’s selfish because he [her brother] still could have done stuff... instead of making everything miserable for everybody he could have been miserable for a bit while he did things that made him uncomfortable... I would never have my behaviour and my issues be so bad that it ruined everybody else’s lives... It’s taken me two years to do this [get on the tube] but you still do it and it’s no anyone else’s business to make it happen... why do I get on with it and think about other people and why do they not?... I think what separates us is a lack of willpower and that’s what makes me angry.” This is a kind of honesty that may seem harsh to some, as well as raise questions about people’s differing capabilities, but ultimately Orla is simply being honest. And it’s very admirable and cathartic to hear. Getting the tube is just one step of many that Orla has taken over the years to overcome her issues, but she is living proof that with time, patience and effort, you can confront your issues, rewire your brain, and enable yourself to lead a more content life.  

Orla in Tube Film.

The last aspect of this documentary that I found interesting was the rather ‘meta’ conversations Kimia and Orla had about using filmmaking as a tool, or an “aid”, in life. Orla argues that for her, making films is a good way for her to process life and provide the courage to overcome her problems. As with this film, choosing to make a documentary of her journey getting back on the tube gave her the strength to finally take the tube on the Central Line (the line on which she had her panic attack in 2023) in order to provide Tube Film with a good, satisfying ending. She notes that “every time I have a bad experience in life, one of the ways that I process it is like ‘well this is a horrible feeling and I know how that feels and maybe I can bottle it and I can make it into something’... it then becomes material that you can shake into something that’s actually good rather than bad.” However, Kimia questions to what extent this way of thinking is actually unhealthy and avoidant – the act of focusing one's attention on making a good film instead of just solely on the personal problems at hand.  

The interesting nuances of this conversation aside, I think the fact that Orla and Kimia decided to just pick up a camera with only a rough plan of what they were going to do is inspirational. Whether you want to make a film to help you overcome a hardship or not, filmmaking doesn’t have to be about big budgets, elaborate storyboards, having a huge platform on which to share it or making something to satisfy the masses – it can be something personal and therapeutic with the option of sharing if you want to.  

Ultimately, Tube Film reminded me of this quote by Carrie Fisher to “Take your broken heart and make it into art”; the documentary is this quote in action, and I hope in time more people will be able to see and enjoy it. 

Check out Orla and Kimia's new London-based film festival, the Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend, here.