Two Film4 Films honoured at Sundance Film Festival

Congratulations to Slow West and Dark Horse who both took home honours this weekend at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

John Maclean’s Slow West, a “bold, beautiful and original” [Guardian] Western took home the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic competition. Starring Michael Fassbender as mysterious drifter Silas and Jodi Smit-McPhee as 16-year-old Jay Cavendish, the film follows their journey across the American frontier in search of the woman Jay loves.

Louise Osmond’s Dark Horse, an “expertly crafted…irresistible, emotion-charged documentary” [Screen International] about a group of working class friends who decide to take on the elite “sport of kings” and breed themselves a racehorse, was awarded the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary competition.

Slow West Dir. John Maclean
A western set in frontier America at the end of the 19th Century, Slow West utilises Colorado’s dramatic landscape as a setting for the unlikely crossing of Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), a wild and dangerous drifter, with guileless adolescent, Jay (Jodi Smit-McPhee). Here, in the dense and feral forests of the American West, where confrontation with a stranger would normally mean a duel to the death, Silas, instead of killing Jay, offers to protect him in exchange for cash. Jay has come to America to be reunited with the love of his life, Rose, a fugitive from their native Scotland. Silas’ true motivation, however, is as enigmatic as Jay’s is true-hearted. It is on his journey with this unlikely saviour, fraught with peril, betrayal and violence, that Jay is forced to question Silas’ loyalty towards him, as he realises all too late that America takes no pity on the innocent.

Dark Horse Dir. Louise Osmond (Released 17th April with Picturehouse)
Dark Horse tells the larger than life true story of how a barmaid in a former mining village in South Wales bred a racehorse on her allotment that went on to become a champion. Jan had successfully bred dogs and birds and believed she could do the same with a different animal – though she knew nothing about racing and had never been on a horse. Convincing a handful of locals to part with ten pound a week for her scheme, she found a thoroughbred mare with a terrible racing record for £300, a stallion past his best, put them together and – against all the odds – bred a winner. It’s an audacious tale of luck and chance and beating the odds; a story of how a gaggle of working class folk from the Welsh Valleys took on the racing elite, broke through class and financial barriers, and brought hope and pride back to their depressed community. Dark Horse is an inspirational, emotional story with as many heart-stopping moments as any ‘jump’ race; it’s a story about dreams coming true.