SELFISH GIANT, The

Director Clio Barnard / 2013 / UK

"A jaggedly moving study of a feral adolescent on a rough journey to grace."  Variety

Against the grim backdrop of a Bradford housing estate, two wayward teenagers – the volatile Arbor and his softly spoken friend, Swifty – begin "scrapping" for a metal dealer when they are expelled from school. Drawn into an underworld of theft, violence and illegal racing, Arbor and Swifty must decide what it means to be a man in a world that wants to forget you exist.

Writer/director Clio Barnard's follow-up to her BAFTA-nominated The Arbor is a powerful and tragic reinvention of the eponymous Oscar Wilde fable. Marrying the social realism of Ken Loach to a black humour very much her own, The Selfish Giant is a bold statement from a filmmaker establishing herself as one of Britain's finest storytellers.

D/S Clio Barnard P Tracy O'Riordan Dist Rialto Distribution TD DCP/2013

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