Bermudian film director and screenwriter Essence Aikman has turned the simple act of eating dessert into something grotesque. The 21-year-old’s short horror flick, Cake is touring screening rooms around Britain. “Cake was written and produced by a friend of mine, Rebecca Schott,” Ms Aikman said. “I loved shooting that Thriller-esque feel. It inspired me so much.”

The film is about a young woman trying to hold a friendship together. All her rage bubbles to the surface when her friend bakes her a pink birthday cake. She starts out eating the cake slowly, before things take a turn.

“She gradually gets more and more aggressive, until she is shoving this cake down her throat,” Ms Aikman said. “She is not really breathing or pausing. Then she smashes the cake up and throws it across the room.”

It was a tricky film to shoot, because there was a danger that the actress could really choke during the scene.

“We planned it ahead of time, and also had a conversation with the actress, making sure she was OK, and understood how to eat the cake,” the Manchester, England resident explained.

The sequence had to be shot so many times, it took six different cakes.

Because Cake is still doing the screening-room circuit, it is unavailable for download at this time.

However, Ms Aikman’s work can be seen in Bermuda at Masterwork Museum of Arts latest exhibition Not All Has To Be As It Was. Ms Aikman’s older sister, Gherdai Hassell, is the primary artist in that exhibition.

Last year, Ms Hassell asked her to create a short film to complement the show.

“At first, I was really nervous about doing it and was not sure if I was ready,” Ms Aikman said. She had only just graduated from the University of Manchester. “Gherdai said, ‘This is the time’. I definitely felt like I had something to add.”

The result was FindingSoft Ground, depicting a woman in a lacy white dress, and red cape walking through a grassy landscape on a warm summer’s day. The woman is meant to be a Bermuda landlord, one of the themes of the exhibition.

“It was shot in a park near my home in Newton Heath,” Ms Aikman said.

She loved that the film invoked conversations about home. She and her family moved from Bermuda to Manchester when she was 8. Now “home” is both places for her.

“The content of Gherdai’s show is all about Bermudian landscapes, but shooting in Manchester, a partial home for me, was a nice combination of the two,” Ms Aikman said.

The actress in the film is their younger sister Ishanni Aikman, who is now studying urban planning in Britain.

“The challenge of this was timing, and also making sure everything was cohesive with the art exhibition,” Essence Aikman said.

She started taking drama classes not long after her family relocated to Britain.

“I liked being on stage,” Ms Aikman said. “I thought I was more of a singer, before I realised that I actually did not like singing on stage. It stressed me out too much. I preferred acting.“

It was not until she entered college that she tried a film-making course.

“I liked studying film,” she said. “I had to write, direct and shoot my own short film. That really changed everything for me. I also did acting, but that was the first time I really took film-making seriously.”

She studied film and drama at the University of Manchester. However, because it was more of a research school, most of her courses were theoretical. She took more technical courses off campus.

“I love writing and directing the most,” she said. “There is something special about directing a script I have written myself, but I also enjoy collaborating on something written by someone else.”

Ms Aikman claims film in Britain is a tough industry with a lot of racism and nepotism.

“It is not about letting new people in,” she said. “Even for the people who are already in, it is difficult because film production is backed up, due to last year’s strikes in Hollywood, California.”

Understanding the industry made her re-evaluate her ambitions.

“I wanted to do film-making not only for myself, but also for people who looked like me, were like-minded and who wanted to explore and try different things,” she said. “I wanted to put underrepresented voices on a pedestal.”

She wants to create films but is not tied to the concept of making a blockbuster.

“I really enjoying making things and pushing stories that are not being told,” she said.

She is looking at film as less of an industry thing and more of an “artsy thing”. The young film-maker is trying not to let the industry’s issues get her down.

“In time, everything heals,” she said. “We will see what it looks like in the next five to ten years. In that time, I will just be developing and making sure I know what I want my craft to be, once that door opens, if it ever opens.”

Her advice to young Bermudians looking to get into film is to stay true to themselves.

“Trust your intuition and your judgment,” she said. “Believe in yourself. That sounds corny, but we live in a time where ― especially in Bermuda ― art jobs are not seen as doable. Keep making, keep writing, keep doing and getting better at your craft.”