Cannes Winner Marco Martins’ ‘Great Yarmouth’ Boarded by LevelK (EXCLUSIVE)

Holly Jones
·3 min read
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Danish international sales and aggregation outfit LevelK has boarded the thought-provoking drama “Great Yarmouth: Provisional Figures” by award-winning Portuguese director Marco Martins, which world premieres in main competition at next month’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

Hailed by Variety as “a powerful study of intense grief,” Martin’s debut feature, “Alice,” won the Prix Regards Jeune at Cannes in 2005.

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The story unravels three months before Brexit, as hundreds of migrants descend on the UK village of Great Yarmouth seeking work in the region’s turkey processing plants. Once there, Tânia greets them with matronly authority, taking charge as innkeeper, accountant, and fixer. As she’s forced to deceive them, her conscience grows heavy and she dreams of a brighter, seemingly unattainable, future transforming derelict hotels into modern retreats for elderly tourists.

Tânia’s struggle unfolds with dim and hazy shots that add a raw and unnerving aesthetic to the film, mirroring the impossible nature of her plot to escape a ruthless cycle after facing the grim reality she’s up against, as a woman who ascended each rung of the ladder by abandoning her moral compass.

“Great Yarmouth” captures the exploitative nature of untethered corporate greed, with vulnerable labor forces being promised better lives only to be met with squalor and abysmal work conditions.

The film is produced by Filipa Reis for Portugal’s Uma Pedra no Sapato (“Azul”) and co-produced by Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl for the U.K.’s Elation Pictures (“Edmond”), Yohann Cornu for France’s Damned Films (“Gabriel And The Mountain”) and François D’Artemare for Paris-based Les Films de l’Aprés-Midi (“One Floor Below”).

Marco Martins
Marco Martins

Additional financial support came from Portugal (ICA, RTP), France (CNC, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Charente-Maritime), the U.K. (BFI’s Covid Completion Fund) as well as Eurimages.

Martins, who combed the Portuguese community of Great Yarmouth for years before sitting down to pen the screenplay with writer Ricardo Adolfo (“Saint George”), drew from first-hand accounts to inform the gritty narrative.

“It’s been five years since I first started researching this project by interviewing more than a 100 Portuguese migrants living and working in Great Yarmouth, and I’ve seen it transform from play to film, traverse a pandemic and Brexit, and come out on the other side to screen at San Sebastian. I’m grateful to be joining forces with the fantastic team at LevelK in that endeavor,” Martins remarked in a statement.

An ensemble of non-professional actors, mainly Portuguese workers and inhabitants of the area who’ve worked with Martins for several years, were cast alongside well-established actors Beatriz Batarda (“Yvone Kane”), Kris Hitchen (“Sorry We’ve Missed You”) and Nuno Lopes, the star of “Alice,” to create rugged, believable portraits.

This September, “Great Yarmouth” will vie for San Sebastian’s Concha de Oro with such titles as Christophe Honoré’s coming-of-age feature “Winter Boy” and “Pornomelancolía,” a solemn dive into the life of a sex influencer, from Argentine director Manuel Abromovich.

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