To mark what would have been opening night of Film4 Summer Screen 2020, we invited the cast and filmmakers of Film4-backed feature Rocks to discuss the making of the film, in a special online event in conversation with film critic Simran Hans.
Originally scheduled for release in April 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic closed cinemas worldwide, Rocks is a new feature film that follows teenager Rocks (Bukky Bakray) who fears that she and her little brother Emmanuel (D’angelou Osei Kissiedu) will be forced apart if anyone finds out they are living alone. With the help of her friends, she evades the authorities and navigates the most defining days of her life.
Ahead of the new autumn 2020 release of the film, director Sarah Gavron (Suffragette), associate director Anu Henriques, screenwriters Theresa Ikoko (winner of the Alfred Fagon award in 2015 for her play Girls) and Claire Wilson (Little Drummer Girl, Gangs of London), and actors Bukky Bakray and Kosar Ali all join film critic Simran Hans, writer and Observer film critic, for a discussion into the collaborative creative process behind the film, with a selection of exclusive clips, shared publicly for the first time.
A film about the joy, resilience and spirit of girlhood, this special Behind The Screen talk offers an insight into the making of the film from its creators and stars, which saw the majority of the actors street cast from East London, and who went on to work collaboratively with the all-female creative team to shape the authentic screenplay.
