Renowned British filmmaker Terence Davies’ most ambitious film to date, SUNSET SONG, adapted from the classic novel by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, is set for release in the UK and Ireland on 4 December 2015 through Metrodome Distribution.
The film will receive its World Premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival; a UK Premiere at the BFI London Film Festival where it screens in Official Competition, plus a special Scottish Premiere closer to release.
SUNSET SONG stars Agyness Deyn (PUSHER and the Coen Brothers’ forthcoming HAIL, CAESAR), Peter Mullan (TYRANNOSAUR, WAR HORSE) and Kevin Guthrie (SUNSHINE ON LEITH).
Told with gritty poetic realism by Britain’s greatest living auteur, Terence Davies, SUNSET SONG laments the devastation of war and pays fine tribute to the endurance of the land. Set in a rural Scottish community, SUNSET SONG is driven by the young heroine Chris (Deyn) and her intense passion for life, the unsettled Ewan (Guthrie) and for the unforgiving land. The impact of the First World War is felt from afar, bringing the rapidly changing modern world to bear on this community in the harshest possible way. Yet, in a final moment of grace, Chris endures the great hardships. Now a woman of remarkable strength, she is able to draw from the ancient land in looking to the future.
SUNSET SONG is an epic in emotional scale and deeply romantic at its core.
Terence Davies’ career as a filmmaker and screenwriter spans four decades, with many of his feature films winning critical appraise and awards. His credits include THE FIRST TWO; DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES; THE LONG DAY CLOSES; plus THE NEON BIBLE and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, both adaptations of novels by John Kennedy Toole and Edith Wharton respectively.
His most recent works include his first documentary OF TIME AND THE CITY which received rave reviews when it premiered out of Competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and THE DEEP BLUE SEA, an adaptation of the 1952 play by Terrence Rattigan which was selected to close the 55th BFI London Film Festival.
In 2005 Sunset Song was named the “Best Scottish Book of All Time” at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
The BBC turned the book into a TV series in 1971.
