On a bright, crisp day in late November 2019, Total Film is catching a train from Keighley station to travel through bucolic Yorkshire countryside, the fields painted with frost. As TF’s breath mists in the vintage train commissioned just for this journey on the Worth Valley Railway, actors Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook sit further down the carriage admiring the view and flirting, as writer/director Clio Barnard watches from behind the camera – smiling as it catches a moment of sunny loveliness inside and outside the train.
Those familiar with Barnard’s Bradford-set socio-realist output might be surprised to find the Otley-born filmmaker looking for lightness and love in her fourth film set in her homeland. Her debut The Arbor was an unflinching look at the racism, deprivation and alcoholism that plagued playwright Andrea Dunbar, The Selfish Giant charted the tragedy of two young boys driven to danger by poverty and lack of opportunity, Dark River explored PTSD and incest. Ali & Ava, the heartwarming story of an Asian landlord finding an unexpected connection with a White-Irish matriarch is as much a love letter to Brief Encounter and that compressed-time romance as it is to the former wool capital.
“I wanted to make a film that was a love story, and that showed what was beautiful about Bradford,” Barnard explains during a break in filming as we tuck into local curry. “I felt I hadn’t really seen that on the big screen before, and it felt important. I was inspired by Brief Encounter but it was set around the people in the train station café that the couple were in, rather than the couple themselves.”
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Denne historien er fra February 2022-utgaven av Total Film.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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RETURN TO OZ
WICKED Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defy gravity as the Broadway smash reaches cinemas.
GRIN AND BEAR IT
SMILE 2 Trauma-horror sequel sees the curse latch onto a pop superstar...
BAD ROMANCE
TIMESTALKER Alice Lowe falls in love with the wrong man time and time again...
CLOWNING GORY
TERRIFIER 3 Creator Damien Leone says Art the Clown is coming home for Christmas...
SELF EXPRESSION
LAYLA A non-binary, British-Palestinian drag queen navigates their expression of identity.
GENA ROWLANDS
I like difficult roles,' said Gena Rowlands. No kidding. A stage, TV and film actor whose career spanned more than six decades, Rowlands will be most remembered for the series of coruscating dramas she made with her first husband, actor-turned-director John Cassavetes, between 1968 and 1984.
'NOW NOTHING IS ABOUT LOOKS OR ABOUT BEING A LEADING LADY.AND IT'S VERY LIBERATING' EMILY WATSON
Since breaking hearts in Breaking the Waves, Emily Watson has delivered countless screen masterclasses, from Gosford Park and Punch-Drunk Love to Apple Tree Yard. Now, the English star goes toe-to-toe with Cilllan Murohy in Irish drama Smeal/ Things like hese and fronts 1V prequel Dune: Prophecy. Is it her second coming? It's elementary, my dear Watson...
BLODD PRESSURE
BASED ON STEPHEN KING'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK AND WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY IT SCRIBE GARY DAUBERMAN, VAMPIRE MOVIE SALEM'S LOT FACED AN UNHOLY FIGHT TO GET TO OUR SCREENS. TOTAL FILM HUNTS DOWN DAUBERMAN AND STARS LEWIS PULLMAN AND MAKENZIE LEIGH TO LEARN ALL THAT WAS AT STAKE...
Lucky Man
He broke out in Beatles jukebox musical Yesterday and has a varied slate of juicy projects on the horizon, including a very different take on a superhero franchise. But, as the everhumble Himesh Patel tells Total Film, he puts a lot of it down to luck...
A BUE ABOVE
WORLD-BUILDER EXTRAORDINAIRE RIDLEY SCOTT IS ALSO THE MASTER OF THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, RESTORING HIS MISHANDLED GEMS INTO MASTERPIECES. WITH THE EXPANSIVE DIRECTOR'S CUT OF NAPOLEON NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM, TOTAL FILM SPEAKS TO THE GREAT SCOTT ABOUT BLOWING UP BONAPARTE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EDITING AND WHY BIGGER IS (USUALLY) BETTER.