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A decade on and filmmaker Jez Lewis also returns to his hometown in Yorkshire, Hebden Bridge, and a real-life drama about why his childhood friends are killing themselves.
Beginning with a personal quest for understanding, the film moves into a year-long exploration of the problems his friends face and find impossible to overcome.
“It takes an enormous amount of courage and guts to do this, particularly on your first feature. What’s so special about this film is that Jez’s subjects are people he grew up with and loves. He shows how difficult it is emotionally to deal with these people and what they have become in the intervening years, how they’ve suffered. Yet at the same time Jez is able to turn something so personal into a compelling and timely story that audiences can connect with. For me what works so well is the strength of feeling, the warmth of Jez’s relationships and love for these characters that most of us would choose to reject on a daily level. There’s a feeling of transcendence, the film is made from an insider’s point of view, as a contemporary voice, rather than a distanced or cool trained eye.” – Nick Broomfield