NORFOLK

Directed by Martin Radich

Produced by Rachel Dargavel and Finlay Pretsell for Creative England, BBC Films and the BFI

FESTIVALS

Rotterdam International Film Festival 2015

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015

Dinard Film Festival 2015

REVIEWS

Martin Radich’s blend of gritty realism and poetic, ominous surrealism had its world premiere in the main Tiger competition for new talent. Rising star Barry Keoghan (who also appears in ’71) stars as a young lad divided between his glowering father, a disillusioned mercenary, and a romantic connection with a young revolutionary (a strong debut from street-cast Goda Letkauskaite) in a Norfolk uniquely envisaged as a haunted no-man’s land. Look out for a UK release later this year.

(Best of Rotterdam Film Festival, DAZED)

“As with Beckett, a key component of Norfolk's compelling tension is its creation or opposition of numerous doubles: father and son, son and lover, etc. And like Beckett, the rhythm of Radich's characters' interactions is also brilliantly uneven and off-kilter. But Radich's absurdism does sit much closer to Pinter's more naturalised version. His Norfolk is seemingly quite a realistic world that just happens to be riddled with an intense, confusing sense of menace.

So viewers should certainly prepare themselves for an active, interpretative challenge. Much of Norfolk even feels as if it's told in defiance of the audience. But the result is triumphant. Being able to believably render reality this unreal is a remarkable and mesmerising feat.”

(Thomas Humphrey, Cineeuropa)