James Griffiths’s buzzy UK-shot and set comedy The Ballad Of Wallis Island received its first UK festival screening Friday evening in St Andrews, Scotland, as the opening film of the Sands International Film Festival.
The crowd-pleasing comedy arrives at Sands after its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film follows Charles (Tim Key), an eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island and dreams of getting his favorite musicians, McGwyer Mortimer (Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan), back together. His fantasy turns into reality when the bandmates and former lovers accept his invitation to play a private show at his home on Wallis Island. Old tensions resurface as Charles tries desperately to salvage his dream gig.
Griffiths told the sold-out Sands crowd after the screening that the film was almost filmed in Scotland, but the production shifted over to Wales after Carey Mulligan signed on.
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“When we first started working on the script, we thought we were going to shoot up here in Scotland, but Carey Mulligan became involved, and she was having a baby at the time,” Griffiths said.
“Her family is all from Wales, specifically the Pembrokeshire coast. So she asked if we would consider scouting that area and finding a location to shoot near her family so she could have the support.”
Griffiths said he agreed and began a long walking tour of the “entire Welsh coastal path” with his location scout.
“It was the summer, so the beaches were full of people with buckets and spades, so we couldn’t find anywhere that was empty or where the National Trust would let us have in the summer,” Griffiths explained, adding that his fortunes changed after a chance meeting in a local Welsh cafe.
“I met this farmer in a cafe and he said, I’ve got a beach,” Griffiths said to hearty laughs from the Sands audience. Griffiths and his crew went on to set up on the farmer’s remote beach and began production.
“It was really hard to get to and it was really challenging production-wise and we only shot the film in 18 days, so it was very fast,” Griffiths says of the shoot. “We all just mucked in and were committed to making that film there because it felt like such a transformative space. There’s just something poetic about these British coastal spaces.”
Griffiths directed the pic from a screenplay by Tom Basden and Key. Rupert Majendie produced. Sian Clifford (Fleabag) also stars. Universal will release the film in UK cinemas on May 30.
This year, Sands runs until April 27. The event remains one of the most unique and intriguing on the festival calendar. The festival was founded by Joe and Anthony Russo, who support the event through their AGBO label. Veteran curator and programmer Ania Trzebiatowska is the Festival Director. She runs the event with part-time student programmers from the University of St. Andrews, a partner on the festival alongside AGBO.
The weight of the Russos alongside Trzebiatowska, who is beloved by filmmakers and industry for her work at Poland’s Off Camera Film Festival and Sundance, where she is still a full-time programmer, gives the event access to an impressive list of guests who mix with local festivalgoers in the relaxed environment. Think Telluride with ancient castles and ruins instead of mountains. Previous Sands visitors include composer Alan Silvestri, who gave a live concert to festivalgoers. Tom Holland brought a short he made with his brother Harry, and Steven Soderbergh gave a rare Q&A session alongside Joe and Anthony Russo.
Alongside The Ballad Of Wallis Island, this year’s opening day at Sands featured an industry-focused symposium on film festival curation. Speakers included longtime Sundance Programming head Kim Yutani, who sat for a rare and illuminating talk about her decades-long career. During the session, Yutani was quizzed on her programming practice at Sundance, the festival’s evolving structure, and the titles she has missed out on screening over the years.
“I don’t have much remorse over the things we don’t show. But I do sometimes see films on release or films that turn up at other festivals that we didn’t see, and think, wait, why didn’t we see that? It’s such a great film,” Yutani said. “The film that I thought this about was Booksmart. I thought, why didn’t you show that to us? It’s a great film.”
Sands will also this year host Q&A sessions with Joanna Lumley, casting director Kharmel Cochrane, and Edith Bowman will chair a session between AGBO’s Chief Creative Officer Angela Russo-Otstot, the Russo Brothers and filmmaker Frank E. Flowers.
The festival’s closing night film is John Maclean‘s survival thriller Tornado featuring Tim Roth, Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden and Japanese star Kōki.
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