New British films
High-Rise by Ben Wheatley
Wheatley’s darkly comic “Sightseers” (2012) played in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Fest.
This film stars Tom Hiddleston in an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel, a project that producer Jeremy Thomas has been trying to get made for decades, and which was once to be directed by Nicolas Roeg.
Icon by Stephen Frears
Stephen Frears (best known for the Oscar-winning The Queen) had previously showed in Cannes Film Fest “Tamara Drewe” (2010) and “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” (2013).
Ben Foster plays disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, while Chris Dowd plays David Walsh, the Irish sports journalist who helped bring him down.
Sunset Song by Terence Davies
This long-gestating adaptation of Scottish novelist Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s 1932 classic.
One of the most revered directors of his generation, Davies was previously at Cannes Film Fest with his out-of-competition documentary, “Of Time and the City” (2008).
Davies was in competition with “The Long Day Closes” (1992) and “The Neon Bible” (1995), and he won the Fipresci prize for his 1988 Directors’ Fortnight entry, “Distant Voices, Still Lives.”