British films at Sundance 2017

Amid characteristic snowfall and freezing temperatures, the Sundance Film Festival opens its doors again in Park City, Utah, from 19-29 January. But it’s mud rather than snow that defines the sole British film making its world premiere in the festival’s world cinema dramatic competition: Francis Lee’s debut feature God’s Own Country.

“You can smell the mud in this movie”, claims the festival blurb about this Yorkshire-set drama, which stars Josh O’Connor as a young sheep farmer who’s abandoned his hopes of escaping to college in order to run the family farm for his ailing father (Ian Hart). Best known as an actor on British TV in series such as Casualty and Heartbeat, as well as in Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy (1999), writer-director Lee has made his first feature with backing from the BFI Film Fund, following a trio of fiction and documentary shorts.

Elsewhere in the Sundance programme, two UK productions are screening in the Spotlight section, which gathers together tasters of the best international films that have screened at other festivals. Both of these films were included in last year’s BFI London Film Festival: Lone Scherfig’s Blitz drama Their Finest, starring Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy and set in the world of Second World War propaganda filmmaking; and William Oldroyd’s deliciously dark period drama, Lady Macbeth, set in 19th-century Northumberland and developed by Creative England, the BFI and BBC Films through iFeatures.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland-set revenge drama Bad Day for the Cut will see its world premiere in the Midnight slot for genre fare. The feature debut of Belfast-based director Chris Baugh, it stars Games of Thrones’ Nigel O’Neill as a farmer out to avenge his mother after she is brutally murdered. The film was funded by the Northern Ireland Screen Fund and supported by Invest NI and the BFI.

A number of British documentaries will also be unveiled in Park City, including an as yet untitled film by Lucy Walker (Blindsight, 2006; Countdown to Zero, 2010) on the Buena Vista Social Club musicians who instigated a Cuban music revival in the 1990s. In competition, there’s Adam Sobel’s The Workers Cup, about the migrant workers’ football tournament during construction for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, as well as the British-Canadian-Japanese co-production Tokyo Idols, exploring Japan’s fascination with girl groups.

Experimental filmmaker Jem Cohen, best known for the 2012 feature Museum Hours, returns with World without End (No Reported Incidents), an impressionistic look at Southend-on-Sea, while Vincent van Gogh’s Provence is the subject of Pleasant Places, an installation piece by filmmaker Quayola. These two films are highlighted as part of Sundance’s New Frontier programme.

Last but not least, five British shorts are featured in the festival, including three documentaries (Charlie Lyne’s Fish Story, Jennifer Zheng’s Tough and Rubika Shah’s White Riot: London) and two fiction (Rob Savage’s Dawn of the Deaf and Shola Amoo’s Dear Mr Shakespeare).

Follow the BFI’s Twitter to find out how this British selection fares as Sundance 2017 gets under way.