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Film maker Carol Morley has done something quite remarkable with her new film. "Dreams of a Life" makes us care about a woman who nobody seemed to care about, so much so that when she died in her flat in London in 2003, sheÌýwasn't found for three years. The death of Joyce Vincent is shocking. The headlines of the newspapers in 2006 carried the grisly story of the skeleton of a woman found in her bedsit, surrounded by wrapped Christmas presents, and with the tv still on. The television being still on seemed to affect a lot of us. That, and the heating too being on. How could this have happened? How could someone die and no one notice?

Carol said she saw a newspaper report when she was sitting on the Tube and got thinking about who this woman could have been? She turned into a bit of a detective, tracking down Joyce's friends, former work colleagues and lovers. They all had the same reaction - how could it have been Joyce? While the newspaper reports only showed the exterior of her grim bedsit, there were no photos of the dead woman. Carol pieces together who she was, and what is even more shocking is just how beautiful, vivacious, and downright sexy she was.ÌýInterweaving interviews with old friends and work colleagues, and imagined scenes from Joyce's life, played by actress Zawe Ashton, I sat at my computer yesterday for 90 mins straight and watched this film. It made meÌýweep for a woman I didn't know and for a society that could let someone disappear so easily. It's time we filled in those cracks people can so easily fall down.Ìý

"Dreams of a Life" is at the QFT Belfast from 30th December.

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