W I N TE R LONG
WINTERLONG TECHNICAL DETAILS Duration: 94 mins. 2:35:1 Colour 5.1 Exhibition Format: 2K DCP / BluRay WINTERLONG CONTACT Ben Woolford Nox Films E: ben@noxfilms.co.uk T: +44 (0)7712 573 467 Website: www.winterlongthefilm.com LOGLINE A poacher living on the margins is forced to change his feral ways when his estranged teenage son turns up unexpectedly on his doorstep.
SYNOPSIS Francis leads his life resolutely on the margins, an existence that is by turns solitary, feral and lawless. When his estranged teenage son, Julian, turns up on his doorstep one day, the two of them are forced into an uneasy relationship together. Then Francis’ sometime girlfriend Carole appears on the scene. Her presence is a bulwark against his fiery temper and slowly, tentatively, she draws out of him a faith in the world again as the three of them strike up an unlikely rapport. Carole is called away to continue a tour of Belgium with her band and father and son revert to youthful reverie, wandering freely in the Sussex hinterlands. But this gives way to something darker when Julian breaks a promise by taking a friend into the woods. An accident occurs that puts father and son under the authorities’ spotlight in a blink and they are forced to make a decision which will change their lives forever.
W INTERLONG WRITER & DIRECTOR David Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker. He has made four short films, including two as writer/director funded by the BFI: The Future Lasts a Long Time and Brilliant! The shorts have played to wide acclaim at international festivals worldwide, including Amiens, London, San Sebastian, Krakow, Espoo Cine, Miami, and Brest. He has received nominations for Best Newcomer at Soho Rushes Film Festival and Best Short Film at BBC Talent. As a writer, he received a First Draft Award from DNA Films and his film This Is Not My House, a documentary portrait of his father, was winner of the 2014 Hot Shoe Photofusion Award. Winterlong is his debut feature as writer and director.
WINTER LON G DIR ECTOR ’ S STATEMENT Winterlong is a personal film that owes much to my friendship with actor Francis Magee. I first met Francis a decade ago on the set of a Channel 4 drama I was directing. It turned out we both lived in the same small seaside town on the Sussex coast and slowly, tentatively, we became friends. At that time, Francis had separated from his wife and son and was living in a caravan park on the edge of town. One winter’s day he invited me over for lunch and we talked. Later, we went out to collect wood for his stove. It was a freezing cold winter day and pouring with rain. As I trudged behind him in the woods carrying armfuls of logs, I remember feeling this encounter intensely as the inspiration for the beginnings of something. Making Winterlong has been a thinking outwards from this image; first in the writing,
and then, much later, in the shooting and editing. The story, about a father and son, and the people who come in and out of their lives, was written as a film I could make with minimal resources. In a sense, the primary influences that motivated me as a filmmaker had much less to do with other films per se – although Winterlong does have a strong lineage with particular forms of British filmmaking that take a more poetic approach to realism – and more to do with just wanting to make the film happen somehow with what and who was around me at the time. At the outset I tried to write the story as truthfully as I could in a non-judgmental, observational style. By setting the story in the East Sussex hinterlands, I wanted to make the landscape as much a part of the drama as the characters that inhabit that space. On saying that, I don’t see Winterlong as belonging to the category of grim social realism – I don’t have an axe to grind as a filmmaker. What I do have, though, is an interest in opening up the spaces of the more ordinary aspects of our lives. Whereas a lot of films are, I think, people on the outside looking in, I’ve tried to close the distance that opens up by having the audience experience the drama a little more intensely, making them a little more involved with what’s going on on-screen. I think it’s important cinema shouldn’t shy away from emotion and Winterlong has become a more tender and gentle film than I first imagined after the encounter with Francis in the woods. And for me, that’s no bad thing.
WINTERLO NG INTERVIEW WITH WRITER AND DIRECTOR Where does Winterlong come from? What are its influences? Winterlong comes from a patchwork of influences, situations, events, encounters that were all slowly woven together during the long making process. Looking back now, I would say there were three main threads or influences, all happening simultaneously: namely, what I was reading, where I was living, and how I was living. In one sense the initial influences were literary rather than filmic. I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny, a tender, funny chronicle of the writer’s three weeks spent alone in the company of his six year old son in nineteenth century rural Massachusetts; and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, a beguiling modern tale of two orphaned sisters and their oddball aunt set in a remote town in Idaho. Both these works were a constant benchmark for me in terms of their unsentimental approach to telling a
story about children and adults. Then there was where I was living whilst reading these books: Hastings, a town on the English South Coast that had seen better days, along with its surrounding landscape of semi-rural hinterlands, woodlands and hills. The last thread – and probably the most important – was the simple fact of being a father and having a young family and all the day-to-day demands, frustrations, responsibilities that go with that. On the front page of the shooting script I put a quote from the American novelist David Vann: ‘A father, after all, is a lot for a thing to be.’ I didn’t include it in the film because it’s too literary, but it seems to sum up in all its strangeness as a sentence the weight of what it means to be a father in the world. And I suppose I wanted to try and test that idea out in the script and the film. The theme of families coming apart and coming back together raises many questions. What were the most important ones for you, especially about fathers and sons? I’m not trying to make a grand statement about families or about the role of fathers in them. I’m much more interested in opening up stories about the more ordinary aspects of our lives. For me, the film is more about the broader spectrum of human relationships, and so-called traditional family structures, than specifically about father and sons. Both Francis and Julian are deeply connected
one way or another with others at various points in the story, and I wanted to explore these encounters, in particular with the opposite sex, how they deal with the offer of love or friendship, and how that need grows in their lives given their history – or lack of it – with each other. In terms of families coming apart and together, I suppose the main impetus in thinking about these themes has been my on-going friendship with actor Francis Magee. I first met Francis a decade ago on the set of a Channel 4 drama I was directing. It turned out we both lived in the same town and we both had wives and young kids and were both going through similar but different experiences as fathers. Sometimes Francis would come over to my house with his boy and the story grew initially out of those encounters with him and his son and just observing what went on between them. Did you have certain actors in mind when you wrote the script? I did, and that made the writing process much easier for me. I wrote it knowing that Francis, Carole and Doon would all be in the film. Francis formed the character just by being himself in front of me. I just observed him being who he is and wrote it down. Obviously, I had to pull all those details together and weave them into the pattern of fiction, but what you see onscreen is true of the man himself. Carole Weyers, on the other hand, has never
sung in a band and doesn’t play an instrument. But that didn’t stop me enshrining her best qualities as a person and as an actor onscreen. The same goes for Doon, who I knew sang opera. And what was really rewarding creatively was to watch the relationships emerge between the actors during the shoot and for those relationships to become concrete through the editing. And I had it in mind that my own son, Harper, would play the boy. So I wrote it for him too. Continuing the theme of father and son, an interesting parallel emerges between Francis and Harper/Julian and you as director. What led you to cast your own son in such a demanding role? Working with Harper was special: it’s an experience neither of us will ever forget. In my head there was an ideal rehearsal process that involved me shooting a follow up to a personal documentary I had made called This Is Not My House about my own father living in Malta after my mother died. I was going to call the second instalment This Is My House and planned to shoot it with Harper at home, reversing the previous roles so that I would be the father observing his son. In filming Harper for this documentary over an extended period, I would ‘train’ him to lose all self-consciousness in front of the camera. Or so I imagined. As it turned out, I was too busy spinning Winterlong plates to make the documentary happen. By the time
we started shooting, Harper had never stood in front of a camera as an actor. For one reason or another there were no read-throughs or rehearsals of any kind (although I did go through the script meticulously with him) and there were no camera tests either. It was an incredible creative and emotional risk for both of us. We sat down together and I told him we just had to get on and do our best by each other. ‘You’re going to have to trust me and I’m going to have to trust you, and we’re just going to have to see what happens.’ As a director, I needed him to recognise how difficult this was going to be. Not only did he have to get through a gruelling 18day schedule in the middle of winter, but also, he had to reveal his vulnerability on camera as Julian in some very emotional scenes. What changed your mind about Harper? It happened when we shot Harper’s first big scene when his dad brings him back to his old house to show him it’s empty and that his mum has truly gone and left him. When the moment came, Harper pulled it off. I remember looking at the monitor and feeling so emotional watching him sit on the edge of the bed crying. We did another take, I gave him some notes, and he did it again. He handled it very professionally and I guess it was at that moment I knew he could do it. I think his performance gains in confidence scene by scene throughout the film. I’m so proud of him as a director. We took the biggest risk together and pulled it off.
What was your relationship with your main creative collaborators? I knew from the outset that Winterlong wasn’t ever going to be a social realist film. That isn’t my aesthetic. I come from a background in photography and I’m always more drawn to composed images over handheld rawness. Winterlong was always something else – something more natural, more gentle – and the joy of making the film has been discovering what that something else might be as we moved through the production process. In asking people to work with me – whether in front or behind the camera – I see the creative relationship as more akin to a gift or an exchange. I’ve been lucky on this film to have some very talented people around me. I think a film owes a lot to who you choose to work with and how you work with them – especially when you don’t have money. I’d already made a couple of shorts with production designer Janice Flint. We’ve developed a shorthand over the years: I can show her a bunch of photographs by, say, Laura Henno, and she gets it instantly. Location was key and Janice understood intuitively that getting the right location was all about finding the landscape of the film. It may be the interior of a house or something like that, but to me it’s all landscape. Similarly with cinematographer Ben Cole, I showed him Kelly Reinhardt’s Wendy and Lucy. There’s a simplicity and concreteness to the way that film is shot that gives an accuracy to the images. And it’s exactly
this accuracy I’m looking for in Winterlong. It’s about the right image for the story. Throughout the process I kept posing the same question to my collaborators: what do we really need to make a good film? My answer was always to keep it simple and tell the story. Every decision has been to this end – especially during the editing with Gabriela Enis. Of course we still wanted to keep the production values and quality high, but that comes down to the skill and commitment of the crew and actors.
DOON MACKICHAN is best known for Smack the Pony and most recently Two Doors Down, Psychobitches and Plebs, for which she received a BAFTA nomination. She is a regular in London’s West End and was recently seen in Twelfth Night at National Theatre.
W INTERLONG CAST FRANCIS MAGEE’s CV spans 20 years and he is best known for his portrayal of Yoren in Game of Thrones (seasons one and two) and as Liam in Eastenders. He trained at The Poor School in London and has received high praise and acclaim for his dynamic performances and unique presence on both stage and screen. Other numerous credits include: Jimmy’s Hall, Layer Cake, and Angela’s Ashes. CAROLE WEYERS began her career in Brussels and has since appeared in films, television and theatre across Europe and the US. Carole now lives and works in Los Angeles, where she has taken roles in Manhattan, NCIS, Finding Focus and Henry V. HARPER JACKSON is on his way to drama school. Winterlong is his first film as an actor.
IAN PULESTON-DAVIES is best known for his five year stint as Owen Armstrong in Coronation Street. He can currently be seen in Sky Atlantic’s Tin Star (season one). ROBIN WEAVER featured in all three series of The Inbetweeners and both spin-off movies. She has also appeared at the RSC and her expansive CV for television includes: Black Mirror, The Catharine Tate Show, Green Wing and The Thick of It.
WINTERLO NG FULL CAST & CREW LIST A Nox Films production in association with University of Bedfordshire Francis Francis Magee Julian Harper Jackson Kaye Robin Weaver Carole Carole Weyers Band members Jack Wilson Ben Beetham George MacDonald Eddie Lewis Woman in Holiday Park Kim Tiddy Barbara Doon Mackichan Quiz Master Philip Iceton School Administrator Lizzie Braint Mrs Greene Alice Marshall Taylor Nina Iceton Taylor’s boyfriend James Crouch Police Officer #1 Chris Pearson Hotel Receptionist Rita Mosca Doctor Jonathan Christie Paul Ian Puleston-Davies Headmaster Jonny Magnanti Taylor’s mother Anneli Page
Police Officer #2 Police Officer #3 Man with Dog Dog
Paul Blackwell Denise May John Hodgson Huggy
Writer/Director David Jackson Producer Flossie Catling Executive Producers Ben Woolford and Karen Randell Director of Photography Ben Cole Production Designer Janice Flint Costume Designer Charlie McGarrie Editor Gabriela Enis Music Rob Lane Post-Production Supervisor Steve Couch Casting Director Muireann Price First Assistant Director Billy Payn Second Assistant Director Veronica Vetrano Third Assistant Director Jack Fontaine First Assistant Camera Matt Farrant Second Assistant Camera Shaun Taylor Gaffer Mark French Lighting Technician Ian Brant Production Sound Mixer Joel Carr
Boom Operator Richey Rynkowski Location Manager Jade Tamzin Robertson Script Supervisor Judita Berndorff Caterer Nicki Mason at Bitesize Catering Art Director Gordon Clarkson Construction Manager Hugh Ashford Visual FX Bob Smoke Art Department Assistants Sean Christopher Winwright Priyanka Verma Tobias Holbeche Make up and Hair Designer Bobbie Ross Make up and Hair Supervisor Shauna Taggart Costume Assistants Emily Freeman Sophena Ahmed Charlotte Still Annushka Rogers Production Assistant Jade O’Brien Floor Runners Thomas Young Darcy Cassidy Daniel Read Hannah Hobbs Amy Richardson Khouram Hussain Graphic Designer Steven Marsden Stills Photographer Joshua Pulman EPK Freddie Parkin Colourist Malcolm Ellison Online editor Brian Ainsworth
DIT Assistant Supervising Sound Editor Re-recording Mixer Sound Designer Dialogue Editor Foley Editor Foley Artists
Alexandra Brant Nick Baldock Ben Carr Peter Baldock Adrian Furdui James Matthews Kristiana Udre and Patrick Singer
Music composed and produced by Rob Lane Music recorded at Wave Studios, Brighton Score mixed by Will Rice Additional programming and assisting by Richey Rynkowski Music Preparation by Jonny Sims Featured musicians Viola Bruce White Cello Nick Cooper Guitars Arthur Dick Steel String Guitar Jude Lane Clarinet Rob Lane “Ah, fors’e lui” from “La Traviata” Music by Giacomo Puccini Words by Francesco Maria Piave Performed by Doon Mackichan “O mio babbino caro” from “Gianni Schicci” Music by Giacomo Puccini Words by Giovacchino Forzano Performed by Doon Mackichan “Blue Blood” Performed by Hannah Dennard Written and Produced by Ben Beetham Mixed by Alan Branch
“Blossom d’Amour” Performed by Hannah Dennard Written and Produced by Ben Beetham Mixed by Alan Branch “Blossom d’Amour (acoustic version) Performed by Hannah Dennard Written by Ben Beetham Arranged and Mixed by Rob Lane
Script developed with Kate Leys through DRAFTED
Dedicated to my father
Accounting services provided by Nyman Libson Paul
Made in Hastings, England
Insurance services provided by Integro ACJ Post-production sound services provided by Art4Noise Post-production picture services provided by igloo postproduction Special thanks to Claire Bushe Louisa Dent at Curzon Artificial Eye Kevin Dolan Françoise Durdu Jon Francis Paul and Jessica Goodman Alice Whittemore Deborah Rowland at We Are the Tonic Supported by Film London, StEPS and RIMAP
This film is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real life is purely inevitable. Copyright Š 2018 by Nox Films Ltd ALL RIGHTS RESERVED