Sebastian Godwin’s The Visitor wraps principal photography in North Norfolk
by Kaleem Aftab
- The director’s feature debut stars Aisling Loftus, Tom Goodman-Hill, Raffiella Chapman, Hattie Gotobed and Lukas Rolfe
Principal photography has wrapped on writer-director Sebastian Godwin’s feature-length debut, The Visitor. The disturbing drama stars Aisling Loftus (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [+see also:
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making of
film profile], Humans), Raffiella Chapman (The Theory of Everything [+see also:
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film profile], Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children), Hattie Gotobed (Beast [+see also:
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interview: Michael Pearce
film profile], Game of Thrones) and Lukas Rolfe (Fury, Will), and tells the story of a young woman who arrives at the home of her new husband's estranged family to find the children behaving in increasingly unnerving ways.
Produced by Hugo Godwin, the film is set entirely in a single rural family home in North Norfolk, where the escalating horror and tension of an unsettling family dynamic unfolds. It is the second feature from a new slate of funding aimed at supporting first-time filmmakers through Film London’s Microwave scheme, supported by the BFI (using funds from the National Lottery) and BBC Films. The Visitor is being produced in association with Ian Sharp and Emma Dutton at Sharp House, and Andy Brunskill’s SUMS Film and Media Ltd.
The Visitor sees the Godwin brothers continue their working partnership, having previously produced a number of short films, including The Rain Horse (2008) and the BIFA-nominated The Girls. Hugo Godwin’s other producing credits include the documentary Ten Billion [+see also:
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Sebastian Godwin is a graduate of the Polish National Film School in Lodz, while Hugo Godwin is currently developing a slate of projects spanning drama and documentaries, including an eco-thriller set in Panama with Peter Webber (Wilder Films), an adaptation of Richard Kerridge's memoir Cold Blood with David Belton (CrossDay Films), and a movie inspired by the globally best-selling book The Reason I Jump, with Runaway Fridge.
Godwin says that The Visitor will fuse the atmosphere and aesthetic of films such as Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth [+see also:
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interview: Yorgos Lanthimos
film profile] and Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool [+see also:
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film profile] with the sheer visceral tension of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs and Michael Haneke's Funny Games [+see also:
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film profile]. Set entirely in one location, The Visitor intends to unsettle and disturb.
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