Title: I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning
Section: Directors’ Fortnight
Director: Clio Barnard
Screenwriters: Clio Barnard, Keiran Goddard, Enda Walsh
Sales agent: Charades
Logline: On the cusp of turning 30, Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor, five childhood friends from the same [Birmingham] estate, are suddenly forced to confront a life where their hopes and dreams haven’t materialized. They are all walking the high wire. But which one will fall?
Panelists: Cast members Anthony Boyle (Patrick); Joe Cole (Rian); Jay Lycurgo (Oli)
Key quotes: Joe Cole on his character, Rian, who has left Birmingham to become a banker in London: “I think he’s at a crossroads in his life where he’s had a certain amount of success in his career, he’s made money, but he’s also looking at his friends who have relationships and families and they’re building lives together and he hasn’t done that. So, there’s a sense of even though he has all this sort of financial, monetary success and big houses, he’s probably quite lonely and you see him kind of going through dates and relationships and trying to figure that out and he hasn’t quite got it. So yeah, I think all the characters are at different stages of life and some are more successful in some ways and some are more successful in others.”
Jay Lycurgo on his character, Oli, who is going through struggles: “Oli is dealing with this addiction. He’s just turned 30. He’s realized that he hasn’t got his responsibility or his purpose yet. I see it more of just like him counting on his friends. He needs Lola [a dog he adopts] more than anything because I think what Lola represents is that second chance. And if she dies, if Oli doesn’t look after her, then he’s going to go back to what he was like before.”
Anthony Boyle, a Northern Ireland native, on trying to master the speech patterns of a lad from Birmingham: “I couldn’t get the accent for the first while. I had a dialect coach and couldn’t get it and was sort of panicking. And I [typed] in the area in Birmingham where the accent was from and I saw [a video of] a man batter another man outside of a pub going, ‘I’m fucking Ginge. My name’s fucking Ginge, yeah.’ He was punching him and I was like, ‘I need to find this guy.’ …So I found him on Instagram and flew over to Birmingham and then went for a pint with him and then started getting the accent.”
‘I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning’
Charades
