Hackney resident Anna Duffield nominated for a BAFTA award
Bafta-nominated producer Anna Duffield
Hackney-based producer Anna Duffield received a BAFTA nomination earlier this year for her work on Jane Linfoot’s bold and disquieting short film Sea View.
At the ceremony in February she lost out to James W Griffiths’ strange, Borges-esque Room 8, but her and Linfoot’s provocative ode to adolescent turmoil is a triumph nonetheless.
“Before you’re nominated you hear other people say it’s just amazing to be nominated and it doesn’t matter what happens. And actually, to be honest, I kind of felt that as well,” Duffield says.
“It’s quite unusual to get your short into a cinema, so we’re really chuffed about that. It opens it out to audiences beyond film festival audiences, which is great.”
Sea View is an ominous fairytale following the teenage Jess (Eloise Smyth) as she meets Jason (Ciaran Griffiths) in daylight for the first time and makes for a seaside B&B in his clapped-out old Rover.
They arrive at the coast and take a tour of the town’s tired and crummy amusements, before heading for the privacy of their room.
The daring narrative floats through its 24 minutes on a hushed and ethereal air that is at times deeply unsettling. It’s as hypnotic as it is troubling.
“It’s a very intimate film in terms of it just being about these two characters and it’s quite an intense look at her experience of this older man,” Duffield explains.
“It also tackles a lot of universal themes and ones that are quite prevalent in the media in terms of young girls these days.”
Key to the film’s success is a unique and mature performance from newcomer Smyth. She brings a brooding complexity to the relationship that threatens to smash the calm.
“Jane worked very, very hard with her, work-shopping her over a number of weeks to help her really connect with the character and draw that spectacular performance from her.”
Duffield, who is known for successful British features such as Red Road and Donkey, explains that working with Linfoot was an appealing prospect.
“I’ve always wanted to get a project going with her and so when she sent me Sea View to have a read of, its format in terms of length wasn’t really a problem. The material was, I felt, so strong.”
The collaboration has yielded an elegant visual poem flushed with emotion. The pair are set to reunite for a full-length feature that is currently in the development stage.