Archive of films Boy A / Boy A

United Kingdom
2007, 100 min

Section: Another View
Year: 2008

After fourteen years Eric Wilson leaves the juvenile detention centre to begin a new life under a new name. Plunging into the world of adulthood with hope and a willingness to meet everyone’s expectations, will he be able to navigate its pitfalls and defy the shadows of his past? This impressive, down-to-earth drama received the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin IFF. Andrew Garfield’s performance won him a BAFTA Award.

Synopsis

Eric Wilson leaves the juvenile detention centre where he has spent the last fourteen years and tries to start a new life under a new name in a quiet town near Manchester. He is helped in this by a social worker named Terry who finds him work. The naive, sensitive and unreserved youth, full of ideals, attempts to find his bearings after long years in isolation in an environment that is entirely alien to him: he finds a friend, Chris, and a girlfriend, Michelle, and plunges into his new life with hope and a willingness to meet everyone’s expectations. Will he be able to navigate the pitfalls of the adult world – and defy the shadows of his past? A paragon of the British tradition of cinematic sobriety, this adaptation of Jonathan Trigell’s acclaimed novel confronts the protagonist’s tragic past with a present that seems unbridled and full of promise. At the same time the film poses urgent questions about the way in which society approaches the issue of a “second chance”. Andrew Garfield’s performance won him a BAFTA Award and the film received the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin IFF.

About the director

John Crowley (b. 1969, Cork, United Kingdom) studied philosophy at University College Cork and established himself as a theatre director in his native Ireland. He also showed his directorial acumen on the stage of London’s Royal National Theatre. In 2000 he made a short film based on Samuel Beckett’s Come and Go for television, and collaborated with playwright and scriptwriter Mark O’Rowe in 2003 on the crime tragicomedy Intermission, starring Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy, which brought Crowley a British Independent Film Award for Best Debut. In 2005 he worked with Danny Boyle on the project 25 Words or Less: Director’s Cut for the British Film Council. He also made a TV film based on a screenplay by Harold Pinter, Celebration (2006). Following the drama Boy A, Crowley is preparing the cinema release of his third film Is There Anybody There? (2008) with Michael Caine in the lead role.

Contacts

Palace Pictures
Vodičkova 19, 110 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 210 083 527
Fax: +420 224 239 162
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.palacepictures.net

The Weinstein Company
345 Hudson St., 13th Floor, 100 14, New York
United States of America
Tel: +1 646 862 3402
Fax: +1 917 368 6986
E-mail: [email protected]

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About the film

Color, 35 mm

Section:	Another View

Director:	John Crowley
Screenplay:	Mark O’Rowe podle románu Jonathana Trigella / based on the novel by Jonathan Trigell
Dir. of Photography:	Robert Hardy
Music:	Paddy Cunneen
Editor:	Lucia Zucchetti
Producer:	Lynn Horsford
Production:	Cuba Pictures
Cast:	Andrew Garfield, Peter Mullan, Katie Lyons, Shaun Evans, Jeremy Swift, Anthony Lewis
Contact:	Palace Pictures, The Weinstein Company
Distributor:	Palace Pictures

Guests

Andrea Machalíková

Other

David Horáček

Cinema Representative

Alexander van Dülmen

Buyer