45 Years

[projekktor id=’22776′]

45 Years is a British drama written and directed by Andrew Haigh (Looking, Weekend). The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival last year where its stars, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, won the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Actor. It also played at the 2015 Telluride and Toronto film festivals.

Married for 45 years, without children, Kate and Geoff Mercer are poised to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a party, when Geoff receives a letter that shakes both of them. The letter, from Switzerland, lets him know that a body has been found: that of Katya, his girlfriend before Kate, who died falling into a fissure in a glacier when the couple were on a walking holiday in 1962. Though Kate continues to prepare for the party, and the couple shares some romantic excitement about it, she becomes increasingly disturbed by Geoff’s preoccupation with Katya. As the celebrations grow closer, they delve further into their past, leaving their future in question.

“It was very important to me that the film started quiet and remained that way,” Haigh explains about his film style. “This is not about trauma rearing its head, it’s about smaller things; choices and decisions, locked- away feelings and emotions, the things we cannot articulate. All of those fears and doubts that live in those tiny fissures and cracks. Sometimes I think our lives become about not trying to put too much pressure on those fault-lines, hoping the ground doesn’t open up and swallow us whole.”

45 Years is rated 14A.