Danish international sales and assembling company LevelK has stepped up to the thought-provoking drama “Great Yarmouth: Provincial Figures” by award-winning Portuguese director Marco Martins, which will premiere in the main competition at next month’s San Sebastian Film Festival.
welcome her diverse As a “powerful study of extreme sadness,” Martin’s debut feature, “Alice,” won the Prix Regards Jeune at Cannes in 2005.
The story unfolds three months before Brexit, as hundreds of migrants descend on the British village of Great Yarmouth in search of work in the area’s turkey processing plants. Once there, Tanya greets them with graceful authority, taking charge of the hotel keeper, accountant, and mediator. Forced to deceive them, her conscience grows heavy and she dreams of a brighter future, seemingly out of reach, turning abandoned hotels into modern havens for elderly tourists.
Tânia’s struggle unfolds with dark and blurry shots adding a raw and disturbing aesthetic to the film, reflecting the impossible nature of her plot to escape a cruel circle after facing the grim reality she faces, as a woman ascending every rung of a ladder. By abandoning her moral compass.
Great Yarmouth captures the exploitative nature of unbridled corporate greed, in which a vulnerable workforce is promised a better life only to be confronted with filthy, squalid working conditions.
The film was produced by Filipa Reis of Portugal for Uma Pedra no Sapato (“Azul”) and co-produced by Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl for UK-based Elation Pictures (“Edmond”), Johan Cornu for Damned Films of France (“Gabriel And The Mountain”) and François D ‘Artemare for Paris-based Les Films de l’Aprés-Midi (“One Floor below”).
Marco Martins
Credit: Level K
Additional financial support came from Portugal (ICA, RTP), France (CNC, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Charente-Maritime), the United Kingdom (BFI’s Covid Completion Fund) as well as Eurimages.
Martins combed the Portuguese community in Great Yarmouth for years before sitting down to write the screenplay with writer Ricardo Adolfo (“Saint George”), and he drew on first-hand accounts to enrich the bold narrative.
“It has been five years since I first began researching this project by interviewing more than 100 Portuguese immigrants who live and work in Great Yarmouth, and have seen it transform from play to film, navigating the pandemic and Brexit the other side of the screen in St. Sebastian Martins said in a statement, “I am grateful to join forces with the fantastic team at LevelK in this endeavour.”
A cast of non-professional actors, mainly Portuguese workers and locals who have worked with Martins for several years, were cast along with well-known actors Beatrice Patarda (“Yvonne Kane”), Chris Hitchen (“Sorry We Did I Miss You”) and Nuno Lopez, the star The movie “Alice”, to create durable and believable selfies.
Next September, “Great Yarmouth” will compete against the Concha de Oro in San Sebastian with titles such as “Winter Boy” and “Pornomelancolía” by Christophe Honoré, a dive into the life of sexually influential Argentine director Manuel Abromović.
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