Rising Scottish filmmaker Laura Carreira on her powerful debut about a lonely Edinburgh warehouse worker

She came to Edinburgh from Lisbon as a teenager to try to pursue a dream of working in the film industry.

Now Laura Carreira is fast making a name for herself as one of the rising stars of Scotland screen - thanks to her debut feature film.

The 30-year-old writer and director has just won her first major award at the San Sebastian Film Festival with On Falling, her powerful story about a young Portugese woman struggling with a low-paid job as a "picker" in a vast Edinburgh warehouse.

The new arrival in the city is also struggling to make new friends either at work or with the other migrant workers sharing her cramped accommodation.

Ms Carreira drew on her own financial struggles when she was studying film at Edinburgh College of Art while juggling working at the Jenners department store cafe on Princes Street and as a carer in the city for the script of On Falling, which will will get its UK premiere at the London Film Festival later this month.

The film is also heavily influenced by interviews the Edinburgh-based filmmaker carried out with real-life warehouse pickers in Scotland.

Portugese actress Joanna Santos plays the lead character of Aurora, who rarely speaks to any of her fellow workers.

Ms Carreira has been living in Edinburgh since she was a teenager after initially studying film at the António Arroio School of Arts in Lisbon.

She said: "I was there at the height of the economic crisis in Portugal, so it was not looking super-hopeful. One of my teachers suggested I look into studying at Edinburgh College of Art, so I applied and was really happy to get in.

"I loved the city and I was studying what I loved, but I had to work at the same time, which I found hard. I wasn't alone. A lot of the students were struggling financially. I rented rooms with a lot of other migrants.

"That period was difficult, but I think it informed the films that I wanted to make. I would watch all these films where the characters didn't seem to struggle financially. It just didn't add up."

Ms Carreira's first ever job was in the Jenners cafe, where she worked for around a year.

She recalled: "It was a bit of a shock. I was on the minimum wage. It was very difficult to coordinate shifts with my university work and not p*** off the manager too much. There were all these rules that I couldn't quite understand. If we were quiet we couldn't be seen to have stopped work. I really remember watering plants over and over."

Ms Carreira started to make a name for herself in the Scottish filmmaking scene with two shorts exploring themes she has developed and expanded on in her feature.

Red Hill focused on a former miner facing his last day at work as a security guard before retirement, while The Shift followed a young agency worker whose life is suddenly derailed in her local supermarket.

The filmmaker said: "My course was very much dedicated to documentaries. For a while, I tried to make documentaries about work, but it was very difficult. My graduation film didn't really open a lot of doors for me. I wasn't in a good situation financially."

Ms Carreira eventually found work as an editor before getting her first short off the ground.

She said: "As soon as I finished Red Hill I thought 'okay, I want to do a feature now.

“I started developing The Shift, but at the same time was gathering ideas for the feature and started seriously writing the script for On Falling when I was making The Shift.

"I was really interested in our relationship to work, how we define ourselves through it and how it feels to live today. It was important to me to try to bring them into the film. It was almost like trying to put together a web of ideas and thoughts to see if they made something bigger at the end.

"I wanted to convey the feelings I had during those first few years living in Edinburgh. There were little things I carried with me that I ended up bringing to the film."

Ms Carreira's initial research for On Falling, which was filmed in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, saw her take a tour of the vast Amazon factory in Dunfermline.

She said: "It felt interesting to get a sense about the place but there was also something strange about going there and watching people work.

"I never worked as a picker myself. I knew I was going to have to research the work a lot to understand it and be as accurate as possible.

"As soon I started writing the script, I started telling everyone I knew that I was looking to speak to warehouse pickers.

"I spoke to a lot of them and those conversations influenced the film a lot. I asked them about work and also what they did away from work.

"It was also really interesting to hear all the details and practicalities of those jobs. I think people found it quite funny that I wanted to know as much as possible about their day-to-day routines and schedules.

"Some of those conversations made the film darker. I had read a lot of news articles about the harsh conditions and how the work is usually insecure.

“But I realised from those conversations how it was also a psychologically difficult job.

“People are isolated for 10 hours every day. You're on your own with your thoughts.”

An extensive search was carried out in Portugal to find a lead actress.

Ms Carreira said: "Aurora is everywhere in the film so we needed to fight the right person. We saw something like 500 self-tapes.

"Joanna is very different from Aurora, but she could really convey the character.

“She had this quietness and yet could express so much. You could see what she was thinking in those awkward moments.

"The character is obviously experiencing poverty and struggling to make ends meet. But to me it was interesting to look at the other aspects of her life, which is being consumed by work. She is very lonely. She is trying to find others and connect with them, but is really struggling.

"It was really important to me that she did not ask for any help. There are things we are ashamed of and it is hard to talk about. It was crucial that she hid what she was going through."