News

Clio Barnard's The Arbor charted the troubled life of working-class playwright Andrea Dunbar. Her new film, The Selfish Giant, about two boys who scavenge to survive on a Bradford estate, has been called 'a Kes for the 21st century'. Here she talks about the appeal of the margins

Back in 2010, when Clio Barnard was shooting her first feature film, The Arbor, on the Buttershaw estate in Bradford, a young local lad caught her eye. "I first saw him when he was just 14, when I went to Buttershaw to do a workshop at a school," she recalls. "There was just something about him that was different from the other lads I met. He was a bit volatile, but enigmatic too and he really made his presence felt. When I went to Brafferton Arbor [the street on which The Arbor is set] for the first time, there he was, wearing his rigger boots and really dirty clothes. It was pure attitude,...

Evan Ross And Gillian Jacobs In Director Damian Harris' Gardens Of The Night. Courtesy City Lights Pictures. Coming from a family of actors, Damian Harris went against the grain when he chose to become a writer-director. Harris is the son of Richard Harris, the legendary British screen thespian, as well as the stepson of Rex Harrison and the brother of Jamie and Jared Harris, who are also actors. He got his first taste of the movie game when, at the age of 10, he acted alongside Tom Courtenay and Romy Schneider in the comedy Otley (1968). That experience, however, made him realize that his expertise was not in front of the camera, and prompted him to study film at the London International Film School and then screenwriting at Nyu. He...