Director: Shane Meadows
Principal Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Piotr Jagiello, Ireneusz Czop, Elisa Lasowski, Perry Benson, Kate Dickie
Screenwriter: Paul Fraser
Producer: Barnaby Spurrier
Editor: Richard Grahm
Costume Designer: Jo Thompson
Director of Photography: Natasha Braier
Production Designer: Lisa Marie Hall

Winner of the Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film Award (for Thomas Turgoose and Piotr Jagiello). Thomas and Piotr will receive Delta business elite ticket vouchers, valid for anywhere Delta travels.
 
Jury Comments: "For an extraordinary and exhilarating rendering of a friendship found, the Narrative Feature Jury is awarding the Best Actor prize to this magical team."
 
In Somers Town, a London neighborhood by St Pancras rail station, young Tom (Thomas Turgoose), who had nothing to keep him back home in Nottingham, encounters Marek (Piotr Jagiello), a young Polish immigrant with nothing to fill his days. It's a mismatched friendship: Tom (dubbed Tomo by Marek) is full of youthful swagger and Marek, an amateur photographer who lives with his disciplinarian father, is more introspective and cautious. Their dynamic is uneasy and awkward at first-each teen believes himself to be the more mature-but a genuine rapport develops between the two. And when Tomo and Marek both fall for the same girl, the common ground between them further solidifies. Director Shane Meadows (This is England) moves from his usual Midlands setting down to London for Somers Town, but he explores territory quite familiar to him: the working class and fathers and sons. Thomas Turgoose, who stars as Tom, manages to be cocky and vulnerable at the same time, whether he's wearing a tracksuit or a housedress, and he lives up to the expectations of the most promising newcomer prize he received from the British Independent Film Awards for This is England. This charmer of a film-originally developed as a short for the Eurostar rail line-begins and ends with a train ride, but it's really about the journeys we take even if we're not traveling anywhere.

Following the April 26th screening, American Express ® Cardmembers are invited to a complimentary after movie reception at the American Express Insider Center located at 27 Union Square West, Union Square Ballroom. Details to be provided at the theater!

--Peter Scarlet

Shane Meadows tried a variety of jobs after dropping out of school, including a clown's assistant, before borrowing a camcorder and making a short film every month for a year. UK film producer Stephen Woolley then signed Shane to write and direct 24/7, which picked up many top festival awards. Shane turned down Hollywood offers to continue his Midland trilogy with the highly acclaimed cult film, A Room for Romeo Brass and the comedy Once Upon a Time in The Midlands, which played at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2004 Shane teamed up again with Paddy Considine for Dead Man's Shoes, and 2007 saw the release of This Is England, which was nominated for two BAFTA awards.

During the last year or so, traveling from Nottingham to London by train, it was amazing watching the changes happening around the St Pancras area, and the idea of making a short film that was set in this period of transition was immediately attractive. It was the first film I have made in London and I wanted to try and capture both the familiarity and the strangeness of the place. In a funny way it has also become a much more cosmopolitan production than my previous work, with a cast from Poland, France, and the UK and an Argentinean director of photography. It's an exciting prospect to take all of these elements and produce a piece of work that stays true to the philosophy and method of working that I have developed in all my previous films. The fact that what was conceived as a short film has evolved into a longer piece has made the whole thing a really rewarding experience.