DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY/PHOTOGRAPHY/EDITOR/
MUSIC: Mark Jenkin
PRODUCERS: Kate Byers, Linn Waite
PRODUCTION CO: Early Day Films
WITH: Edward Rowe (Martin Ward), Mary Woodvine (Sandra Leigh), Simon Shepherd (Tim Leigh), Giles King (Steven Ward), Chloe Endean (Wenna Kowalski), Isaac Woodvine (Neil Ward)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Edinburgh, Stokcholm, BAFTA Outstanding Debut

REVIEW

“Cornish film-maker Mark Jenkin’s breakthrough feature is a thrillingly adventurous labour of love – a richly textured, rough-hewn gem in which form and content are perfectly combined. A refreshingly authentic tale of tensions between locals and tourists in a once-thriving fishing village, it’s an evocative portrait of familiar culture clashes in an area where traditional trades and lifestyles are under threat. Shot with clockwork cameras on grainy 16mm stock, which Jenkin hand-processed in his studio in Newlyn, Bait is both an impassioned paean to Cornwall’s proud past, and a bracingly tragicomic portrait of its troubled present and possible future. It’s a genuine modern masterpiece, which establishes Jenkin as one of the most arresting and intriguing British film-makers of his generation.”

– Mark Kermode, The Guardian

“The director shoots in muggy close-ups and slams together choppy edits… The complex cinematic lineage of Bait had me scribbling a diverse, conflicting series of notes: its use of English wyrd and outsider intrusion recalls the parochial gloom of The Wicker Man and Straw Dogs; its splaying, vaguely comic sense of low-budget DIY horror feels like the set-up of The Evil Dead; the clashing violence of the edits echoes Chabrolian thrillers like La Rupture; and as hostilities eke closer to boiling point, there’s a sense of the explosiveness of Do the Right Thing… For a film that draws on so much, Bait ultimately feels as unique as a found object, defying classification. It’s a creeping, original British work that feels pounded into existence by hand, or possibly belched up by the angry sea.“

​– Ian Mantgani, Sight and Sound

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

New Plymouth
​Wednesday, 2 March, 6pm

​Dunedin   
Wednesday, 16 March, 7.0pm

Timaru
Monday, 11 April, 6pm

Queenstown
Tuesday, 10 May, 8.15pm

​Whanganui  
Monday, 23 May, 7:00pm

​Nelson  
Tuesday, 21 June, 6:00pm

Canterbury     
Monday, 11 July, 7.00pm

​​Palmerston North   
Wednesday, 28 September, 6:00pm

Hamilton 
Monday, 7 November, 7.30pm

Tauranga
​Thursday, 17 November, 6.30pm

Auckland  
Monday, 5 December, 6.15pm

SOUTH AMERICAN CINEMA >>