Kate Winslet has shared the painful experience of “reliving” the death of her mother while making her new film, Goodbye June.

The Titanic star has made her directorial debut for the feature-length drama, a heartbreaking portrait of a family gathering around their dying mother during the Christmas holiday. It was written by her son, Joe Anders.

Coming to Netflix on 24th December, award-winning star Helen Mirren portrays matriarch June, while the cast also includes Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough and Timothy Spall.

Previewing the film ahead of its limited release in UK cinemas this Friday (12th December), Winslet opened up about the loss of her own mother in 2017, saying it “still feels like yesterday”.

Speaking to Fearne Cotton on the Happy Place podcast, the actress revealed she initially wanted to “keep that private experience separate” from the film before realising it wouldn’t be possible.

“It wasn’t necessarily cathartic, but there were days when I was literally reliving what happened when I lost my own mum, even though our film is fictional. And I would find myself strangely trying to almost hide in a funny way.”

Winslet told Cotton that she often found herself “sitting quietly” behind Max, the film’s focus puller, during intimate scenes with Mirren and Spall.

“I would just sit with him quietly watching his monitor and sort of crying on his back,” she recalled.

The star called the crew member a “great spirit” to “sidle up to” during the more challenging moments of filming.

Winslet is also hopeful the film will spark conversations among families about the realities of loss, recalling a number of enlightening discussions among the cast and crew during production.

“Actually in this country, I don’t think we’re very good at talking about loss. I don’t think we’re very good at processing grief,” she explained.

“And in an interesting way it did bring up a lot of those conversations and people were quite grateful to be able to have them, not just the cast, but sometimes the crew as well.”

Speaking on her transition from actress to director, Winslet says she has watched her male colleagues do the same thing “without any judgment or scrutiny”, while women in the industry aren’t afforded the same freedom.

“It feels like for you personally, not only is this an amazing challenge for you to make that switch, but also you’re doing it on behalf of women to help this cultural shift in the very male-dominated Hollywood directing scene,” she said.

Goodbye June is in limited UK cinemas from Friday, 12th December and on Netflix from 24th December.