Latest news with #Kes
Gulf Today
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Harris Dickinson's directorial debut born of gut feeling
Harris Dickinson is sitting on a rooftop terrace in Cannes, trying to find all the movie tattoos on his body. There's a little one for 2001's 'Donnie Darko,' but there's a much larger one on his arm for 'Kes,' Ken Loach's seminal British social realism drama from 1969. 'I'm sure there's a few more on my legs,' Dickinson says, smiling. 'I can't remember.' But the spirit of Loach runs strong in Dickinson's directorial debut, 'Urchin.' The film, which premiered the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, stars Frank Dillane as a homeless London addict. A sensitive and preceptive character study, 'Urchin' has been widely hailed as a standout at Cannes. Just as the 28-year-old Dickson, who starred in last year's 'Babygirl,' is emerging as a major movie star, he's revealed himself to be a filmmaker to watch, too. 'Before we screened, I was debilitated by nerves,' Dickinson said the day after the premiere. 'I felt so vulnerable - which I do normally with acting, but not as much. I suddenly realized what an exposing thing this is. Like you said, it's showing a different side of myself and putting that out there to be obliterated.' But Dickinson, who first emerged in Eliza Hitman's 2017 film 'Beach Rats,' only expanded audience's notions of him with 'Urchin.' As he explained in an interview, making it was important enough to him, even if it meant sacrificing parts at the very moment Hollywood won't stop calling. Next, Dickinson will star as John Lennon in Sam Mendes' four-film Beatles project. How did your artistic journey start? Was acting or directing first? I wanted to direct from a very young age. I wanted to make films. I was making these skateboard videos and I was doing a lot of short films on YouTube. I had a web series where I would release episodes weekly. It was like a sketch show. That was first love, just making things. Acting kind of kicked off a little bit once 'Beach Rats' came out at Sundance. It was weird. I had to earn my stripes, of course, as an actor. But I couldn't go to film school because I was acting. So I just carried on my own interest in it and thought: Hopefully someday I can do it. Then the short film happened and the BBC took a chance on me, commissioning 'Urchin.' Was it hard to juggle your priorities? Hard to figure out, yeah. And particularly when we're in a world where people don't always love someone trying to doing multiple things. And rightly so. There are times when you shouldn't be trying to be a basketball player, or whatever. A lot of people do go, 'Oh, I fancy doing that now,' particularly when they get to a more successful position. But this has always been a love of mine and I've just been waiting for the moment to do it. That must of required a lot of effort, especially after all the attention of 'Babygirl.' Did it mean saying no a lot? Yeah, for sure. But it's easy to say no to things. 'Urchin' was all I could think about it. It was pouring out of me. It was all that was on my mind. It's easy to say no when you've got something to take you away from that, you know? Nothing that came in would make me question my own film, which is a sign that I had to make it at this time. I don't know, maybe that sounds self-important. What was it about this character that compelled you? The discovery of Mike happened over a long time. I really started with the intention to create a very focused character study of someone who was ultimately battling against themselves. I wanted to show a full person in all of their ugliness and all of their humanity and their charm. And that was a hard process to get right. Associated Press
San Francisco Chronicle
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Harris Dickinson is one of the most in-demand actors, but he had to direct a film first
CANNES, France (AP) — Harris Dickinson is sitting on a rooftop terrace in Cannes, trying to find all the movie tattoos on his body. There's a little one for 2001's 'Donnie Darko,' but there's a much larger one on his arm for 'Kes,' Ken Loach's seminal British social realism drama from 1969. 'I'm sure there's a few more on my legs,' Dickinson says, smiling. 'I can't remember.' But the spirit of Loach runs strong in Dickinson's directorial debut, 'Urchin.' The film, which premiered the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, stars Frank Dillane as a homeless London drug addict. A sensitive and preceptive character study, 'Urchin' has been widely hailed as a standout at Cannes. Just as the 28-year-old Dickson, who starred in last year's 'Babygirl,' is emerging as a major movie star, he's revealed himself to be a filmmaker to watch, too. 'Before we screened, I was debilitated by nerves,' Dickinson said the day after the premiere. 'I felt so vulnerable — which I do normally with acting, but not as much. I suddenly realized what an exposing thing this is. Like you said, it's showing a different side of myself and putting that out there to be obliterated.' But Dickinson, who first emerged in Eliza Hitman's 2017 film 'Beach Rats,' only expanded audience's notions of him with 'Urchin." As he explained in an interview, making it was important enough to him, even if it meant sacrificing parts at the very moment Hollywood won't stop calling. Next, Dickinson will star as John Lennon in Sam Mendes' four-film Beatles project. AP: How did your artistic journey start? Was acting or directing first? DICKINSON: I wanted to direct from a very young age. I wanted to make films. I was making these skateboard videos and I was doing a lot of short films on YouTube. I had a web series where I would release episodes weekly. It was like a sketch show. That was first love, just making things. Acting kind of kicked off a little bit once 'Beach Rats' came out at Sundance. It was weird. I had to earn my stripes, of course, as an actor. But I couldn't go to film school because I was acting. So I just carried on my own interest in it and thought: Hopefully someday I can do it. Then the short film happened and the BBC took a chance on me, commissioning "Urchin." AP: Was it hard to juggle your priorities? DICKINSON: Hard to figure out, yeah. And particularly when we're in a world where people don't always love someone trying to doing multiple things. And rightly so. There are times when you shouldn't be trying to be a basketball player, or whatever. A lot of people do go, 'Oh, I fancy doing that now,' particularly when they get to a more successful position. But this has always been a love of mine and I've just been waiting for the moment to do it. It's strange as well because I'm also at a point in my acting where I had to take a lot of time out to make this film. But I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. AP: That must of required a lot of effort, especially after all the attention of 'Babygirl.' Did it mean saying no a lot? DICKINSON: Yeah, for sure. But it's easy to say no to things. 'Urchin' was all I could think about it. It was pouring out of me. It was all that was on my mind. It's easy to say no when you've got something to take you away from that, you know? Nothing that came in would make me question my own film, which is a sign that I had to make it at this time. I don't know, maybe that sounds self-important. AP: What was it about this character that compelled you? DICKINSON: The discovery of Mike happened over a long time. I really started with the intention to create a very focused character study of someone who was ultimately battling against themselves. I wanted to show a full person in all of their ugliness and all of their humanity and their charm. And that was a hard process to get right. It also happened with Frank, who came on and tapped into those things so beautifully. I kept coming back to the no judgment thing, not allowing us to feel sorry for him too much. Just observe him and go through situations and see how he acts. AP: I admire that he's trying to get his life in order, but he's also sabotaging himself. DICKINSON: He can't transcend his own behavior, which is so common for a lot of people, especially when they've been through a certain degree of trauma. How do you get out of that? How do you change your behavior? When your support network's gone, even the institution is not enough to get someone out of these cycles. As people, what interests me is that we're an incredibly advanced civilization but at the end of the day, we're quite rudimentary in our design. We're quite basic in the way we go back to things. AP: Did the film proceed out of work you've done with a charity for homeless people or were you inspired firstly by social realists like Ken Loach? DICKINSON: I'm always a bit reluctant to talk about this because it's something I've been doing in private and not trying to be like a heroic thing of a cause. I'm just a minor, minor part of a much bigger cause that is ultimately made up hundred of thousands of individuals that are collectively working toward change. But it was always important to have the bones of this film lay in that space. It had to have the uncurrent to it. It had to have that factual reality to it. And, yeah, Loach, Meadows. Ken Loach, he's one of the greats, for good reason. He's made incredibly important films. And I don't know if this film has the through line of a social realism drama or a social political film. I think it has the beginnings of it because we enter the world and then stay there very observationally. But then the language changes. AP: Do you expect to keep making films interspersed between acting? DICKINSON: I hope so. I hope people let me do it again. That's the goal. But it takes a lot of you. I think my partner is probably happy for me to not be a neurotic person for a bit. AP: Well, playing John Lennon is no piece of cake, either. ___ Jake Coyle has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He's seeing approximately 40 films at this year's festival and reporting on what stands out. ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit:
Winnipeg Free Press
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Harris Dickinson is one of the most in-demand actors, but he had to direct a film first
CANNES, France (AP) — Harris Dickinson is sitting on a rooftop terrace in Cannes, trying to find all the movie tattoos on his body. There's a little one for 2001's 'Donnie Darko,' but there's a much larger one on his arm for 'Kes,' Ken Loach's seminal British social realism drama from 1969. 'I'm sure there's a few more on my legs,' Dickinson says, smiling. 'I can't remember.' But the spirit of Loach runs strong in Dickinson's directorial debut, 'Urchin.' The film, which premiered the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, stars Frank Dillane as a homeless London drug addict. A sensitive and preceptive character study, 'Urchin' has been widely hailed as a standout at Cannes. Just as the 28-year-old Dickson, who starred in last year's 'Babygirl,' is emerging as a major movie star, he's revealed himself to be a filmmaker to watch, too. 'Before we screened, I was debilitated by nerves,' Dickinson said the day after the premiere. 'I felt so vulnerable — which I do normally with acting, but not as much. I suddenly realized what an exposing thing this is. Like you said, it's showing a different side of myself and putting that out there to be obliterated.' But Dickinson, who first emerged in Eliza Hitman's 2017 film 'Beach Rats,' only expanded audience's notions of him with 'Urchin.' As he explained in an interview, making it was important enough to him, even if it meant sacrificing parts at the very moment Hollywood won't stop calling. Next, Dickinson will star as John Lennon in Sam Mendes' four-film Beatles project. AP: How did your artistic journey start? Was acting or directing first? DICKINSON: I wanted to direct from a very young age. I wanted to make films. I was making these skateboard videos and I was doing a lot of short films on YouTube. I had a web series where I would release episodes weekly. It was like a sketch show. That was first love, just making things. Acting kind of kicked off a little bit once 'Beach Rats' came out at Sundance. It was weird. I had to earn my stripes, of course, as an actor. But I couldn't go to film school because I was acting. So I just carried on my own interest in it and thought: Hopefully someday I can do it. Then the short film happened and the BBC took a chance on me, commissioning 'Urchin.' AP: Was it hard to juggle your priorities? DICKINSON: Hard to figure out, yeah. And particularly when we're in a world where people don't always love someone trying to doing multiple things. And rightly so. There are times when you shouldn't be trying to be a basketball player, or whatever. A lot of people do go, 'Oh, I fancy doing that now,' particularly when they get to a more successful position. But this has always been a love of mine and I've just been waiting for the moment to do it. It's strange as well because I'm also at a point in my acting where I had to take a lot of time out to make this film. But I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. AP: That must of required a lot of effort, especially after all the attention of 'Babygirl.' Did it mean saying no a lot? DICKINSON: Yeah, for sure. But it's easy to say no to things. 'Urchin' was all I could think about it. It was pouring out of me. It was all that was on my mind. It's easy to say no when you've got something to take you away from that, you know? Nothing that came in would make me question my own film, which is a sign that I had to make it at this time. I don't know, maybe that sounds self-important. AP: What was it about this character that compelled you? DICKINSON: The discovery of Mike happened over a long time. I really started with the intention to create a very focused character study of someone who was ultimately battling against themselves. I wanted to show a full person in all of their ugliness and all of their humanity and their charm. And that was a hard process to get right. It also happened with Frank, who came on and tapped into those things so beautifully. I kept coming back to the no judgment thing, not allowing us to feel sorry for him too much. Just observe him and go through situations and see how he acts. AP: I admire that he's trying to get his life in order, but he's also sabotaging himself. DICKINSON: He can't transcend his own behavior, which is so common for a lot of people, especially when they've been through a certain degree of trauma. How do you get out of that? How do you change your behavior? When your support network's gone, even the institution is not enough to get someone out of these cycles. As people, what interests me is that we're an incredibly advanced civilization but at the end of the day, we're quite rudimentary in our design. We're quite basic in the way we go back to things. AP: Did the film proceed out of work you've done with a charity for homeless people or were you inspired firstly by social realists like Ken Loach? DICKINSON: I'm always a bit reluctant to talk about this because it's something I've been doing in private and not trying to be like a heroic thing of a cause. I'm just a minor, minor part of a much bigger cause that is ultimately made up hundred of thousands of individuals that are collectively working toward change. But it was always important to have the bones of this film lay in that space. It had to have the uncurrent to it. It had to have that factual reality to it. And, yeah, Loach, Meadows. Ken Loach, he's one of the greats, for good reason. He's made incredibly important films. And I don't know if this film has the through line of a social realism drama or a social political film. I think it has the beginnings of it because we enter the world and then stay there very observationally. But then the language changes. AP: Do you expect to keep making films interspersed between acting? DICKINSON: I hope so. I hope people let me do it again. That's the goal. But it takes a lot of you. I think my partner is probably happy for me to not be a neurotic person for a bit. AP: Well, playing John Lennon is no piece of cake, either. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. DICKINSON: I'll probably be neurotic, as well. I'll probably be just as neurotic. ___ Jake Coyle has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He's seeing approximately 40 films at this year's festival and reporting on what stands out. ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit:
New Indian Express
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
The innocent fury of adolescent drama
If 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) in Philip Barantini's much celebrated Netflix series Adolescence had a soul brother, it could well be the soon-to-turn-16 Liam (Martin Compston) in Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen (2002) and, well before that, the 15-year-old Billy Casper (David Bradley) in his 1969 masterpiece Kes. All the three adolescents, across the span of time, have one significant thing in common: their roots lie in the working class that was disempowered back then, and has perhaps been pushed even farther to the margins now. None of them can quite escape how his place in the social stratum defines and confines his life and fosters a profound restlessness and bottomless angst. The world of social and economic inequities fuels an inner rage, which is as much their own as it is an inheritance down the generations and takes shape in the lap of families that are far from perfect. Billy finds a speck of hope in falconry and the possibility of a vocation that the education system would otherwise deny him but it's all too short-lived an option as the future remains a question mark. Having dropped out of school, Liam drifts aimlessly, selling untaxed cigarettes and illegal drugs, dreaming of starting life afresh in a caravan with his jailed mother once she gets released, little realising that his 16 th birthday implies that he can now be tried as an adult for his crimes and misdemeanours. The caravan, like Billy's falconry, remains an illusion—very near and yet so far. Similarly, Jamie, accused of murdering his classmate Katie, can't escape his fate. The pent-up working class fury gets unleashed in all its agony, desperation and horror in the epic third episode as he, a plumber's son—whose home door can be callously broken by the cops and van insensitively defiled by strangers—takes on his posh psychiatrist, Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty). A case of wreaking violence with words in return for the wounds of the heart, mind and soul inflicted by the uncaring privileged. Jamie's rage in Adolescence gets magnified with the intrusion of the internet and social media. The virtual world that the young men like him seem to inhabit more than the real and the concomitant expectations it imposes on them in the face of phenomenons like the toxic manosphere, misogynistic influencers, online radicalisation and incel (involuntary celibate) culture. In a sea of films and series—both from the West and India—about adolescents, that have largely been coming-of-age stories, about teenage crushes and proms, powered by rose-tinted nostalgia for school days and friendships, Kes, Sweet Sixteen and Adolescence stand out by focusing on the more complex explorations of troubled teen psyche where innocence is accompanied with malevolence. 'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport,' wrote Shakespeare in King Lear to underscore the irrational ways of god dealing with humans. Hur Jin-ho's 2023 South Korean film A Normal Family is an acute exploration of a similar illogicality of violence among teenagers and the darkness that seems to reside deep within their hearts. However, unlike Jamie, Liam and Billy, Hye-yoon (Hong Ye-ji) and Si-ho (Kim Jung-chul) are affluent. In fact, it's the safety net provided by wealth that turns the kids into monsters and their sense of entitlement desensitises them to violence to a bizarre extent. A Normal Family questions parenting, society, morality and the legal system in creating this macabre ecosystem of feckless brutality among the young. Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster (2023) tries to find answers for crimes of innocence. What is driving the behavioural changes in its young protagonist, the elementary school student Mugino Minato (Soya Kurokawa)? Why is he bullying his classmate? Kore-eda looks at adolescent violence that emerges from not being able to belong, in being an outlier when it comes to issues of identity and sexuality. In a similar vein, Lukas Dhont's Close (2022) shows the strong bonds as well as unbridled anger underlying an adolescent friendship in the light of the issues of identity, sexuality and the expectations of masculinity. How the urge to blend in and get accepted can wreak havoc with people and relationships we hold dear. Rima Das from Assam is perhaps the most consistent Indian filmmaker when it comes to dealing with adolescence, be it in her Village Rockstars 1 and 2, or Bulbul Can Sing. The latter is where her vision gets darker, with her carefree pubescent protagonists, Bulbul (Arnali Das), Bonnie (Banita Thakuria) and Suman (Manoranjan Das), having to contend with the violence of patriarchy and moral policing. Prithvi Konanur's Kannada film Hadinelentu 17/18 (Seventeeners, 2022) looks at the dangers of the virtual world for the young with an intimate video of two 12th graders going viral online. But what's even more subtly threatening is the caste system that they have challenged—Deepa (Sherlyn Bhosale) is Dalit and Hari (Neeraj Mathew), a Brahmin. In the light of this societal stratification, the closest Jamie, Liam and Billy's anger depicted in Indian cinema could well be the righteous rage of Jabya (Somnath Awghade) in Nagraj Manjule's powerful Marathi debut feature, Fandry (2013). Belonging to a family of pig-catchers living on the margins of the society, his forbidden love for the high-caste classmate Shalu (Rajeshwari Kharat) fires his dreams and desires. But can his adolescent love be adequately disruptive and erase the caste differences? A stone hurled in anger by him is not just an act of defiance in love, but a metaphor for the larger resistance of the disempowered against centuries of prejudice and oppression. (Views are personal) Namrata Joshi Consulting Editor Follow her on X @Namrata_Joshi
The Guardian
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘The time is right for it': Adolescence team to reboot nuclear war drama Threads
With several wars raging, powerful countries squaring up and the world seemingly tilting towards authoritarianism, it would seem a challenging time to expose television audiences to a notoriously bleak story of a British city experiencing the fallout from nuclear war. Yet a UK team of producers behind the global Netflix hit Adolescence believe it is precisely the right time to recreate Threads, a British film from the 1980s that had audiences weeping and horrified at its pitiless storyline. 'It feels really clear that all the news is getting a little scarier,' said Emily Feller, the chief creative officer at Warp Films, the Sheffield-based production company that co-produced Adolescence. 'In the last few years, we've seen more wars coming into our lives again … there has been talk over the last couple of years about various nuclear powers, and I think it feels incredibly prescient to be talking about it again.' The company is developing an episodic TV drama based on the original film, which was made by the British director Mick Jackson and written by the Kes author, Barry Hines. It proved controversial when it was first broadcast on BBC Two in 1984. Some viewers thought it was a documentary, while others argued its harrowing depiction of post-apocalyptic Sheffield should not have been aired at all. However, Mark Herbert, Warp's chief executive, who grew up near South Yorkshire city and remembers the impact Threads had on the country, said he hoped the remake would highlight 'the best of humanity and the worst of humanity' – which he regarded as another contemporary talking point. 'I was born in Doncaster,' he said. 'I grew up in a mining community, and Sheffield was about 15 miles away. I was 14, and I remember walking into school and everybody had seen it. People thought it was real. It had this real public-safety film vibe to it. They had budget limitations, so they had to use real public service and news footage. 'It's a different time now – we're 40 years on – but it feels like the time is right for it. There's also a bit of what people have brought up about our previous work, like This is England. Even the darkest stuff, it's got a huge heart to it. And I think there is a huge heart in Threads that we can explore. It feels like enough time has passed that we can take that original and do something a bit bold, original and fresh with it.' It is early days for the project. No writer, director or cast have been signed up or announced. But the Warp team believe Threads provides echoes of Adolescence, in the story's ability to display authenticity and heart in the most desolate of situations. With increasing concerns that British stories may be squeezed out of TV drama as broadcasters search for hits that work worldwide, the Warp team also believe Threads can be another project set in a British city capable of drawing global audiences. 'The way the original film was written and made, it absolutely had that voice of Sheffield,' Feller said. 'And I think that's the kind of place, again, where you find that very rounded heart to the storytelling.' There is no doubt taking on the project is a challenge. Jackson, who also produced the original film, said he suspected Threads was not enjoyable for most viewers – and should not have aimed to be. 'I feel very strongly that it shouldn't be entertaining,' he said. 'To use something as important as nuclear war as a vehicle for entertainment is quite, quite wrong.' Herbert said projects focusing on realistic characters in a recognisable urban setting would attract and challenge viewers. 'It's that authenticity,' he said. 'It really has to come from the page, from the characters. It's a bit like my favourite gangster series, Gommorah, which is so specifically Naples. Yet it's just mind-blowing – and then has characters that are different. 'I'm quite attracted to slightly outsider stories. For us, it's trying to think: how do we surprise someone next?'
