THIS FILTHY EARTH
Year: 2001
UK: Film Four
Cast: Rebecca R Palmer, Shane Attwooll, Demelza Randall, Xavier Tchili, Dudley Sutton, Ina Clough, Peter-Hugo Daly, Eve Steele, Ryan Kelly, Etta Kötting
Director: Andrew Kötting
Country: UK
UK: 111 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and moderate sex and violence
UK Release Date: 18 December 2001 (Limited Release - Edinburgh)
UK Release Date: 7 December 2001 (Limited Release - Cardiff)
UK Release Date: 2 November 2001 (Limited Release - London)
Synopsis
THIS FILTHY EARTH, is the second feature from director Andrew Kötting, whose debut film, GALLIVANT, won him Channel 4's Best New Director Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 1996. Representing a powerful and immediate new voice in cinema, Kötting has produced a work of stunning quality.
THIS FILTHY EARTH is the tragic story of sisters Kath (Demelza Randall) and Francine (Rebecca Palmer) whose lives are disrupted by two men - a brutal villager greedy for the girls' land and a gentle stranger who offers the possibility of escape. Amidst a landscape of rural hardship and a community consumed with superstition, events unfurl which threaten their sibling bond.
Inspired by Emile Zola's 'La Terre' and 'Pig Earth' by John Berger, Kötting finds that the people are so much of the earth that their lives - in joy and in tragedy - are dominated by their harsh and impartial bondage to the land.
THIS FILTHY EARTH, stunningly rendered and thoroughly thought provoking, looks set to be one picture that could salvage the image of Lottery funded films. Made for £1.2 million, THIS FILTHY EARTH is a stunning fusion of celluloid and digital video that will be rightly revered as a saving grace for British cinema.