Directed by Bryn Higgins Written by Oliver Veysey Produced by Oliver
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Directed by Bryn Higgins Written by Oliver Veysey Produced by Oliver Veysey / Bill Curbishley Starring Ella Purnell, Edward Bluemel, Jordan Stephens, Georgie Henley With Nigel Lindsay, Jo Hartley and Jason Flemyng Access All Areas will have it World Premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Running time: 94 min / Certificate: TBC For all publicity enquiries please contact: [email protected] / 020 7247 4171 Twitter & Instagram: @aaathefilm facebook.com/accessallareasthefilm GO FOR THE MUSIC. GO FOR YOUR LIFE An unlikely gang of teens escapes from their dysfunctional parents to an island music festival to lose themselves in the crowd and find themselves in the music. SHORT SYNOPSIS When hapless Heath gets caught up in Mia’s desperate bid for freedom, it catapults them and their friends on a wild road-trip to the Isle of Sounds festival whey they lose themselves in the crowd and find themselves in the music. Nothing goes to plan, but if they can get hold of some tickets and survive the crowds, toilets, aerial acrobats, chaos, Swedish hipsters, as well as the unwelcome appearance of their maniacal parents, it promises to be an unforgettable weekend. SYNOPSIS A long, hot summer is coming to an end. Whispers of a comeback performance by the legendary artist Kurtz are all over town, and aspiring musician Heath is desperate to make it to the Isle of Sounds festival to see it. But Heath is going nowhere. While his friends are moving on and moving away, he’s stuck caring for his unpredictable mum Libby, and scrubbing pans to support them both. Mia has no time for anybody, certainly not her increasingly unhinged father Mack, and least of all Heath, whose affections have been long unrequited. Since the death of her mum, her home has become a war zone. So Mia does what all teenagers do in that situation: she parties every night and refuses to come home. Something has to give. When Heath gets caught up Mia’s bid for freedom, it catapults them and their friends on a wild pilgrimage across beautiful British countryside to the greatest show on earth. But, having recently lost his wife, Mack isn’t going to let go of his daughter easily and he doesn't trust Heath not to lead her into more trouble. He kidnaps Libby from her meditation among the fairies, and sets out to thwart their kids’ escape plan, not knowing that he’s about to embark on his own hallucinogenic voyage of self-discovery. On arriving at the party island, the Mia and Natalie flirt their way to a set of VIP wristbands and leave their unfortunate male companions in the dust. Deserted by his friends, and with fifty thousand terrifyingly loud revelers standing between him and the comeback that might never happen, Heath goes in search of his hero Kurtz. But he should be careful what he looks for…because you never know what you may find. Over one unforgettable weekend, nothing will go to plan for Heath and his friends. But if they can survive the crowds, the toilets, the aerial acrobats, the chaos, the Swedish hipsters, the unwelcome appearance of maniacal parents, and an apocalyptic backstage encounter with a rock legend, then their lives will never be the same. ABOUT THE PRODUCTION How do you make a film about a music festival without taking an entire film crew into the midst of 60,000 dancing, partying kids? You can’t. “The writer in me has always thought, ‘what an exciting thing to try and do, to make a film at a music festival’” laughs writer and producer Oliver Veysey. “And it was only when I put my producer’s hat on that I discovered how challenging it was going to be!” Every summer, fields all over the country fill with thousands of revellers who make their own pilgrimages to experience the mad, muddy magic of the British festival. Events like Glastonbury, Bestival, Reading and Leeds bring people together from all walks of life, creating pop-up cities that turn a single weekend into a transformational experience. “When I was 17 I hitchhiked to Glastonbury” says Veysey. “And for a period of time I went to 10 festivals a year. It was a big part of my life, and my friends’ lives.” With documentaries like Woodstock (1970), Glastonbury (2006) and All Tomorrow’s Parties (2009) only ever seeing the crowd as vox pops, Veysey knew that no one had ever really managed to capture the feeling of being at a festival – let alone used it as a backdrop for a dramatic movie. Co-producing The Railway Man in 2013 with The Who’s manager, Bill Curbishley, Veysey started trading festival stories when he heard the perfect set-up for his script. “Obviously Bill’s been involved in music his whole life, but he told me the story of how his daughter went to her first festival. She was 16 at the time and she begged him to go until he said, ‘okay, you can go, but this young man is going to come with you’– and he found her a chaperone. He told this guy, ‘you’re going to take my daughter to her first festival and if anything happens to her you’ll answer to me’. So off they went, the boy terrified and the girl mortified… They went in and within a matter of hours the girls had ditched the boys and the next time anyone saw Bill’s daughter she was on the shoulders of some random guy in the mosh pit of the main stage… on the BBC.” Mixing Curbishley’s story with his own, and bringing the rock legend on board as his co- producer, Veysey wrote Access All Areas as the ultimate festival experience – a feel good road trip with an emotional, dramatic heart that was going to be set, staged and shot right in the middle of a real festival. Taking the idea of the ‘pilgrimage’ as his cue, Veysey’s script told the story of multiple journeys, and multiple generations. Just as Heath and Mia have their own problems to work out, so too do Libby and Mack – with everyone in the film searching for something they’ve lost along the way. Access All Areas might be a freewheeling festival film, but it’s always anchored by its characters. Knowing how delicate this balance was going to be, Veysey knew he needed a director who understood both sides of his story – leading him to director Bryn Higgins. “Bryn really understood what I was trying to do,” explains Veysey. “We really connected in terms of the energy and what it needed to feel like. He’s a very assured director and he knows exactly what he wants. He understands music, he understands the characters and he really knows how to tell a story.” “As ever, you start with the script,” adds Higgins, who went from Casualty 1909 and Privates, to Black Mirror and 2014’s hard-hitting epilepsy drama Electricity. “I thought Access All Areas was a very characterful, warm script. It was always meant to be a film that gives the experience of going to a festival, but it obviously had to have a great story at the heart of it. It’s a good strong family drama, but at the same time it’s never soft or easy. So it was the script that attracted me first, and then the pedigree behind it.” Describing the film as a “feel good road movie for two different generations”, Higgins’ own love of music made signing on an easy decision. “Honestly I can say this is one of the most fun films I’ve done,” he says. “Of course it was a big challenge, and of course there was a lot of interesting things that we had to overcome, but it’s a kind of win-win. It’s a film with a lovely character led script, it’s a film that involves the challenge of shooting in a real festival, and above all it’s about music – and to me, those are three fantastic things to be able to take on. You’re building a world from scratch when you make a feature and this was a great world to build. It was an excuse to have a lot of colour, a great deal of music…” MUSIC AT THE HEART OF IT ALL Picking a soundtrack that includes everyone from Faithless, Tame Impala and Future Islands to John Holt, Royal Blood and Disclosure – and capturing live performances from The Who and Underworld – music is at the heart and soul of the whole film. The soundtrack to rival any film released this year will be released on Universal Records. Veysey says “the film carries you away and immerses you for a time in the festival, and the music plays a crucial role in that”. “At most festivals there’s 20 odd stages playing at once,” explains Higgins. “My own kids are listening to stuff that I wouldn't even have listened to back in the day – so the whole music world is better now than ever. Everybody listens to everything and the soundtrack had to reflect that. So I got to listen to all kinds of new bands. For a brief moment I was quite hip!” A UNIQUE LOCATION Shooting exteriors in and around Bristol, with road scenes shot all over the South West, the biggest challenge early on was securing a real festival to double as the fictitious Isle of Sounds. Needing a major event that offered the kind of crowd, as well as the variety of different areas, backdrops and locations needed to stage the bulk of the film’s action, there was only ever one choice for the film’s producers.