Carol Morley is set to return to the director's chair next month with her drama The Falling… and the brand new poster for the film has been unveiled.
Morley has mixed dramatic projects with documentary movies throughout her career and this is her first narrative film since Edge back in 2010. However, we last saw her in the director's chair with documentary Dreams of a Life in 2011.
As well as being in the director's chair, Morley has penned the screenplay for the film, while premiered at the BFI London Film Festival last year - where it was met well by the critics. Morley is one of the most exciting female filmmakers around at the moment and I am excited to see what she delivers with her latest film.
She has brought together a terrific cast as Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh take on the central roles of Lydia and Abbie. Williams is best known for her role as Arya Stark in TV series Game of Thrones, and The Falling sees her return to the big screen for the first time since Gold. She looks set to balance television and film work throughout 2015. The Falling with introduce us to the acting talents of Pugh, as she makes her acting debut.
Williams and Pugh are joined on the cast list by Maxine Peake, Anna Burnett, Greta Scacchi, Rose Caton, and Lauren McCrostie.
Set in 1969 in a rural British girls' school, The Falling explores what lies behind a mysterious fainting and twitching outbreak that rapidly spreads amongst the pupils.At the centre of the epidemic are intense and clever Lydia Lamont (Maisie Williams) and admired and rebellious Abbie Mortimer (Florence Pugh), both sixteen years old.
The Falling
They carve their initials into a majestic English oak tree, which leans over a magical pond, and vow never to lose touch. But Lydia already feels that Abbie is drifting away from her and soon her fears are confirmed. A gang of committed friends including prefect Susan (Anna Burnett,), who longs to be Abbie, and sceptical Titch (Rose Caton) who remains unaffected by the fainting, surround Lydia. But none of them can take Abbie's place. Only her older brother, loner, occult-follower and ley-line believer Kenneth (Joe Cole), is able to provide some solace.
When the sympathetic young art teacher Miss Charron (Morfydd Clark) tries to reach out to Lydia, she herself becomes caught up in the fainting epidemic. Within the volatile, strange atmosphere of the school and her troubled home-life, Lydia feels driven to discover what is really behind everything that seems wrong.
As the fainting escalates Lydia confronts the authority figures around her: her mother, self absorbed home hairdresser Eileen (Maxine Peake), the unbending and indomitable deputy head Miss Mantel (Greta Scacchi, ), and the enigmatic and powerful headmistress Miss Alvaro (Monica Dolan). Eventually Lydia's actions force old secrets to rise to the surface and she finds herself faced with a truth that she never expected.
