Winner of Best British Newcomer Award: Jack Thorne - Screenwriter, The Scouting Book For Boys

 

This Award celebrates new and emerging British film talent and recognises the achievements of a new writer, producer or director who has demonstrated real creative flair and imagination with their first feature.

Having grown up together on a caravan park on the Norfolk coast where their respective parents work, young teenagers David (Thomas Turgoose) and Emily (Holly Grainger) have become close friends, deeply reliant on each other for distractions and mischief. It's a shock to them both when it's decided that Emily is to be sent away to live with her father, and there's even greater alarm throughout the park community when Emily disappears. David struggles to cope as the situation grows ever more complex. The debut feature from Tom Harper, director of a number of acclaimed shorts, and written by playwright and Skins contributor Jack Thorne, The Scouting Book for Boys is an expertly constructed drama with deftly handled shifts in tone, depicting the anxieties, awkwardness and fears of being a teenager, without denying the occasional delights of being young or the possibility of fun and adventure during a hazy British summer. Thomas Turgoose continues to build on the reputation he's gained appearing in Shane Meadows' This Is England and Somerstown, while Holly Grainger delivers an equally impressive performance as Emily. An excellent supporting includes Steven Mackintosh, Rafe Spall and Susan Lynch.

Michael Hayden

View Trailer
Director
Tom Harper
Cast
Thomas Turgoose, Holly Grainger, Rafe Spall
Country
UK
Writer
Jack Thorne
Distributor
Warner Bros Pictures UK/ Pathé Productions Ltd
Running time
92min
Year
2009

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