The first trailer for “Think of England,” the upcoming satirical WWII drama from BAFTA-nominated writer/director Richard Hawkins (“Theory of Flight, “Everything”), has been unveiled.
Inspired by an enduring wartime urban myth that Winston Churchill’s U.K. government commissioned pornographic films to boost troop morale during World War II, the film — which first premiered in Tallinn — is now set to get its U.K. premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on March 6.
Set in the summer of 1943 on the Orkney Islands, where the Normandy landings are fast approaching and troops on the front line are increasingly desperate, the film follows an eclectic group of characters, each selected for their own unique skillset, tasked with a top-secret mission: to make pornographic films intended to raise morale ahead of invasion. As each assignee struggles under the weight of conscience, coercion, and fear, the darkly satirical story examines who draws society’s moral lines, who enforces them, and what happens when they are crossed under extreme pressure.
The film, which was shot under the principles of Ted Hope’s NonDe movement, stars Ronni Ancona (“Big Impression,” “EastEnders”) as wardrobe and makeup artist Agnes Duprée, with leading lady Natalie Quarry (“Call the Midwife”) as Holly Spurring, and leading man Jack Bandeira (“The Gold,” “Andor”) as Corporal Evans, alongside John McCrea (Olivier award-winner “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”) as Captain Anthony Clune. The cast also includes Ben Bela Böhm (“Better Call Saul”), Oscar Hoppe (“All the Light We Cannot See”) and Ollie Maddigan (“The Olive Boy”).
Produced by father-daughter duo Nick and Poppy O’Hagan for Giant Films, “Think of England” is also a described as a “controversial film about cinema itself,” about how moving images have “historically tested, challenged, and redrawn the boundaries of what audiences are willing to see.” Set firmly within its time, the film “shines a light on the institutional misogyny and homophobia of the era while allowing its unlikely characters to gesture toward a more tolerant future, reminding us to continually question the sensibilities and censorship of any age, including our own.”
See the “Think of England” trailer below
