In 2022, we were invited by Damian Daniel and Noella Mingo of They’re Watching Us, an independent film production company, to compose and produce the original score for the feature-length documentary Fearless.
The brief was to bring the deeply personal stories of six women to life through individual musical cues, each tailored to specific moments of social history. Joe captured the reflective mood of the visuals supporting the women’s interviews, with a score that shifts seamlessly across styles — from jazz and tablas to dub — enhancing the narrative and emphasising emotion, while ensuring the music never felt out of place as the story moved through time.
These shifts reflect pivotal historical moments including Partition (1947), the Notting Hill Uprising (1958), the 1968 Race Relations Act, the Grunwick dispute (1976–78), and the British school system of that time.
When we see elderly women, it can be hard to imagine them as young, vibrant and adventurous — but they were. Women who are now in their 70s, 80s and 90s lived through, and were part of, some of the most pivotal moments in women’s social history. They were young and fearless during times of dramatic societal change, political upheaval and personal danger, as well as at the birth of movements that pushed women’s rights forward like never before.
Fearless is a heartwarming documentary featuring six women aged between 78 and 90 who, as young people, left everything behind to start new lives far from home — often against the backdrop of tumultuous historical events. Today, these women are almost invisible within modern society, yet as the film reveals, they remain vibrant, engaging and full of humour.
The film interweaves archive footage from key moments in recent history with the women’s memories and personal stories — moments and movements that shaped women’s lives then and continue to resonate now.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, Fearless was screened across a range of international film festivals. From June to August 2025, it completed its initial run of nine independent cinema screenings, including London’s Rio Cinema, Rich Mix and The Lexi, as well as Newlyn Filmhouse in Cornwall.
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