Relatively Speaking creates intimate documentaries about the messy and meaningful relationships that make us human.
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The Story Lab
Over the years, we've developed a way of working that creates intimacy and allows people to reveal themselves. The Story Lab is where we share that process.
Notes from the Field, is the first collection of practical lessons from years spent filming real people and real lives.
Film Commissions
Human stories happen everywhere.
They exist around kitchen tables, inside community halls, within charities, and behind the organisations and brands that shape our lives.
Every Relatively Speaking film starts in the same place: with people. We spend time, build trust, and look beyond the obvious to uncover stories that feel honest, nuanced and genuinely human.
Whether we're documenting a family, a community project or the people in an organisation, the goal is always the same: to create authentic human stories.
Explore how we can work together below:
Documentary storytelling that builds trust, connection and understanding.
Films that celebrate people, participation and impact.
Thoughtfully crafted films that preserve stories, relationships and memories.
Films
What Our Clients Say
Celia at Relatively Speaking was fantastic to work with. She invested time upfront to get to know the One80 team and co-create the direction of the video, which made a real difference - capturing something genuinely authentic. She created a space where our team felt at ease while bringing clear creative direction. The turnaround was quick, and the final video is a high-quality piece we’re proud to share.
Laura B
You have created the most beautiful and lasting snapshot of my family in all their warts and glory - but somehow even the warts have been sensitively rendered! I have watched, re-watched, and forwarded many many times for my own and others’ laughs and tears. Thank you for now and for the future too as I know this wonderfully shot piece of film will keep getting played at events and for simple enjoyment for years and perhaps even decades to come.
Sophie G
Celia is very skillful at turning everyday family nonsense and general chit-chat into an amusing but emotionally sensitive film which is beautifully curated. She has a good eye for spotting the funny, quirky moments within family interactions that are often overlooked. We love our family film documenting a snapshot of three generations and it will be cherished in the years to come.
Lois K
About
Relatively Speaking creates films that explore the human relationships that shape our lives.
We produce original documentaries for our YouTube channel and partner with families, organisations and communities to tell stories that resonate through honesty, warmth and shared experience.
Alongside our films, The Story Lab is where we share reflections, resources and practical notes from the field for anyone interested in telling more meaningful stories.
Do reach out if this sounds interesting and let's talk.
Human relationships, honestly told.
Meet the filmmaker behind Relatively Speaking
Hello, I'm Celia Peterson, a documentary filmmaker, photographer, and founder of Relatively Speaking.
Years spent living and working in other people's cultures left me hopelessly curious about what makes us human: what shapes us, what we inherit, what we choose. My approach never changes: I listen carefully, build trust and make space for people to be themselves.
That curiosity has taken me from boardrooms to war zones, burial sites to frozen wonderlands - interviewing everyone from intelligence officials to religious policemen, writers to actors. Whatever the setting, I love finding what makes someone or something tick, then building a film that actually moves people.
My work has screened at Academy-qualifying festivals, has been commissioned by Netflix, Channel 4, BBC, Snapchat and Discovery, filming for brands like Porsche, HSBC, and many charities.
Relatively Speaking is the natural extension of all of it: intimate documentaries about the messy, meaningful relationships that make us human.
I'd love to hear your story, come say hello.
Let's start with a conversation
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