The long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking from Academy Award-winner Andrea Arnold (American Honey, Fish Tank), BIRD is a tender, striking and extraordinarily surprising coming-of-age fable about marginalised life in the fringes of contemporary society. 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her devoted but chaotic single dad Bug (Barry Keoghan) and wayward brother Hunter in a squat in Gravesend, north Kent. Approaching puberty and seeking attention and adventure, Bailey’s fractured home life is transformed when she encounters Bird (Franz Rogowski), a mysterious stranger on a journey of his own. A wondrous portrait of the transition from childhood to adolescence that remains grounded in her typically empathetic social realism, Arnold’s latest strides to the wildly poetic rhythm of her own drum.
Short film Travelling Past by Scotland based filmmaker Rory 子豪 Power-Gibb will also be presented during the opening. The film tells the story of young Arabella. On way to a new home abroad, Arabella fears that her childhood will be forgotten… but after finding a carefree friend in Inge, she comes to learn that maybe moving on doesn’t always mean forgetting.