BETTER THINGS

This is the Real Life

Drug abuse, love sickness, hopelessness – Growing up on the countryside is not always quiet and sheltered. Duane Hopkin’s feature BETTER THINGS vividly illustrates this.

Hopkin’s debut is set in a small rural community in the Cotswolds where a teenager has just died of a heroin overdose. The story follows several of her friends and their families who are stuggling to cope with their bleak daily lives in a world of narrow opportunities.

BETTER THINGS has also been selected for the Critic’s Week Competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and features gripping shots and experimental sound design. Director Duane Hopkins grew up in the Cotswolds himself and based some of the characters and their problems on his experiences during adolescence. BETTER THINGS captures the depressing atmosphere of the local youth brilliantly and is a profound study of everyday life in a small town in rural England which is far from being idyllic.

BETTER THINGS: November, 15 – 10:00 pm – Babylon

britspotting rewind: November, 17 – 9:45 pm – Babylon