UK, 2024, 119 mins.
DIRECTOR: Andrea Arnold
WITH: Franz Rogowski, Barry Keoghan, Jason Buda, Nykia Adams, James Nelson-Joyce
One morning, 12 year-old Bailey (Nykia Adams) meets a peculiar stranger who presents himself as Bird (Franz Rogowski). He speaks softly, a wide smile confounding her guarded skepticism: it is the meeting of two worlds, of softness and hardness, but the age-roles are reversed. However, a simple story of acceptance and bond-building is never that simple amidst the social reality of the squat Bailey lives in with her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan). As with every Andrea Arnold film, at its heart Bird (2024) holds Heaven and Earth, the ideal and the real, in equal regard. Expect the signature Arnold needle drop too (here’s a hint: it’s a Coldplay song). For all of us who've longed to see an Andrea Arnold story on the big screen again, we gift you an Opening Night film for the ages: hopeful, human, non-human and always truthfully beautiful in the way it carves spaces for a bit of cinematic magic out of otherwise unkind realities.
"A wonder of contemporary European cinema" Savina Petkova, Cineuropa
The Cambridge Film Festival is presented by the Cambridge Film Trust, a registered charity with a mission to foster film culture and education for the benefit of the public, in Cambridge, the Eastern region, and throughout the UK.
