Poppy Shakespeare

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 2007, 89 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

“N” has lived in the institutionalised world of a North London psychiatric ward for years upon years, and doesn’t want to change a thing about it. The turning point in her life comes with a new patient, an elegant and temperamental black woman named Poppy Shakespeare, who insists she is not insane. The two women strike up an unusual friendship... The outstanding drama is an adaptation of Clare Allan’s successful novel, which The Guardian newspaper described as Catch-22 meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. At once comic and tragic, lyrical and absurd, the story takes an inside look at a claustrophobic, upside-down world in which reality intermingles with fantasy and reason with insanity. In light of the fact that the book’s author spent almost a third of her life in a psychiatric ward, the story of the two women (portrayed superbly by Anna Maxwell Martin and Naomie Harris) can also be seen as a blistering exposé of the shortcomings of the British healthcare system.

About the director

Benjamin Ross (b. 1964, London) studied at St Catherine’s College in Oxford. He drew attention with his very first work, a crime drama based on a true story called The Young Poisoner’s Handbook (1994). His made-for-television retro-drama RKO 281 (1999), about the making of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), earned him a number of awards, including a Golden Globe and three Emmy Awards. After the short film Torte Bluma (2005), which is set in World War II, Ross took part in the making of the portmanteau film 3 & 3 (2005). He is currently teaching film studies at Columbia University in New York and working on the television series Terminal. His romantic drama Napoleon and Betsy will premiere next year.