Kate Winslet's son reveals tragic loss that inspired new Netflix film

Kate Winslet's son Joe has revealed the family tragedy that inspired his mum's tear-jerking new Netflix film, Goodbye June.

The fictional story centres around a dying mother and her disjointed family as she enters palliative care in the days leading up to Christmas. 

Written by Joe Anders, 22, as part of a screenwriting course, the film was inspired by the death of his grandmother - Kate's mother - passed away when he was a teenager.

Joe said that he ultimately wanted to write an 'uplifting' film that captured the complex emotions emotions felt by his family. 

He said of spending time with his grandmother in hospital: 'I remember that feeling really hitting me.' 

Recalling showing the script to his mum, he told Screen Daily: 'I was just wanting to share it with you.

'The fact that it actually has been made is insane to me.'

Goodbye June's official synopsis reads: 'A man and his four adult children navigate messy family dynamics when his wife's health takes a turn for the worse during Christmastime.' 

The film has an all star cast too and features big names including Helen Mirren (June), Timothy Spall (Bernie) and Stephen Merchant (Jerry). 

After being blown away by her son's story, Kate, 50, said that while her plan was to initially act in and produce Goodbye June, she eventually decided that it was time to make her directorial debut. 

The Titanic star said: 'It's not a cancer film. It's a film about something that's happening to an entire family.'

She added of her directorial style to Session Film: 'Making an environment open and supportive enough that the actors feel that they are the most important thing on that set is everything.' 

But as the story was so close to her heart, Kate admitted that she found herself getting emotional when directing any illness scenes.  

The revelation comes after Kate claimed some of the crew on Goodbye June were underpaid because she couldn't secure a big enough budget for the film.

The Titanic star hit out at sexism within the cinema industry as she revealed that being a female director meant she was forced to call in favours to get Goodbye June made as people wouldn't invest. 

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This meant that some crew who wanted to work on the film had to take less than their weekly rate to work on it, Kate claimed. 

Appearing on Kermode & Mayo's Take podcast on Saturday, Kate said: 'When you're a woman, you do a huge amount of ringing around and calling in favours so sometimes with a budget like Goodbye June you might be asking people to come and work for less than their weekly rate.

'I'm talking about department heads and their crew. Sometimes people take a little bit of a hit because they want to come and be part of that experience and they want to support you and we did have that on Goodbye June.'

She went on to say that female actors who become directors are underestimated and people assume they won't know what they're doing, whereas there's an automatic assumption men will.

'It's somehow there's this societal assumption that they will automatically know what they're doing, whereas the same assumption is not made of women,' Kate said.

Goodbye June is available to stream on Netflix now.