Archive of films Somers Town / Somers Town

United Kingdom
2008, 75 min

Section: Another View
Year: 2008

Three intersecting railway lines with three stations – Kings Cross, Euston and St. Pancras – transform the London district of Somers Town into an island, the setting chosen by director Shane Meadows for his new social tragicomedy. This is where Tommo and Marek meet and become friends; together will the two adolescent boys, castaways in their own family environments, be able to find new meaning to life?

Synopsis

16-year-old Tommo befriends Marek, a Polish immigrant of the same age and a keen photographer who uses his camera lens to escape the world of his alcoholic navvy father. The boys find a refuge together in the London district of Somers Town where they can live their dreams. In this they are assisted by their eccentric neighbour Graham and Marek’s photographic muse, the French waitress Maria. Experienced Shane Meadows, known for his explicitly black-humoured detachment from social realism, made his low-budget film in black-and-white, in the city’s atmospheric yet alienating urban environment. A fictional tale about fractured family relationships, the endeavour to find redemption in friendship and the desire “not to be like our parents”, the story is firmly anchored in the architecturally unique historical location of Somers Town, whose geographical and cultural coordinates are defined by the existence of three railway stations: Kings Cross, Euston and St. Pancras. The film was a hit at this year’s Berlinale.

About the director

Shane Meadows (b. 1972, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, United Kingdom) began as a self-taught filmmaker and gained experience working in television. He caught the attention of the critics with his hour-long tragicomedy Small Time (1996), which he wrote, produced and directed and also appeared in. For the BBC he made the sports story 24/7: Twenty Four Seven (1997) with Bob Hoskins playing the lead, which won him the FIPRESCI award at the Venice IFF in 1998. After the tale of two boys A Room for Romeo Brass (1999), he filmed the bitter-sweet comedy Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002), the crime story Dead Man’s Shoes (2004), the half-hour black comedy Northern Soul (2004) and the drama This Is England (2006 – BAFTA for Best British Film). The majority of Meadows’s films have been screened at the KVIFF. Fellow Brit Paul Fraser often co-writes the scripts for Meadows’s films.

Contacts

The Works Film Group
5th Floor, Fairgate House, 78 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1HB, London
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 207 612 1080
Fax: +44 207 612 1081
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.theworksfilmgroup.com

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About the film

Black & white, 35 mm

Section:	Another View

Director:	Shane Meadows
Screenplay:	Paul Fraser
Dir. of Photography:	Natasha Braier
Music:	Gavin Clarke
Editor:	Richard Graham
Producer:	Barnaby Spurrier
Production:	Tomboy Films Ltd.
Cast:	Piotr Jagiello, Thomas Turgoose, Ireneusz Czop, Elisa Lasowski, Perry Benson, Kate Dickie
Contact:	The Works Film Group