Having your debut feature open the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is a rare achievement for a filmmaker and definite cause for celebration. But for the director handed the honour this year, the overwhelming emotion is simply a sense of “massive, massive relief” that his work is being seen at all.
“A teenage tale of surfing, sex and hellfire” is the hard-to-resist tagline for Silent Roar, which has its world premiere in the capital tomorrow. For Skye-born filmmaker Johnny Barrington, however, it is the culmination of two decades spent trying to get viable projects off the ground.
“If I go back 20 years, I’d say it’s been very hard to get it made,” he told The Herald. “There have been quite a few years leading up to making this film where I have been doing a lot of different work and keeping scripts going in the background.”
Crucial to helping Silent Roar from page to screen was the reputational and production muscle of Chris Young, the Skye-based producer whose credits include The Inbetweeners Movie and Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, the first contemporary full-length feature in Gaelic.
“I struggle to imagine any others producer being able to pull it off, to be frank,” said Mr Barrington. “There were a lot of challenges that Chris just launched himself into and rode the wave of chaos. He was great.”
Also important was the BellRock screenwriting mentoring scheme, which ran at Hospitalfield House near Arbroath from 2016 until it was discontinued due to lack of funds in 2019.
“That was instrumental in kicking me up the arse and giving me confidence,” said Mr Barrington. “The people there were provocative and reinvigorated my excitement about film.”
Set on Lewis, where it was also filmed, Silent Roar tells the story of 18-year-old surfer Dondo as he negotiates the disappearance of his father at sea, and struggles with his feelings for rebellious classmate, Sas, and the mystical happenings and cosmic visions set off by the arrival on the island of a new minister.
“Religion plays a huge part in the film and played a huge part in my childhood,” said Mr Barrington, whose father and uncle were both ministers on Skye.
His film is also about humour and tragedy – “Probably the thing which occupies me the most” – and also about grief.
“In terms of exploring grief in the film I thought there was a lot of scope for looking into the madness of grief and the different facets of grief which are maybe not looked at as much as the sadness of it. But there’s lots of other things going on at the same time.
“Dondo is quite connected to the sea. He’s a surfer. And the sea is the pace where he lost his father as well. The landscape of Lewis is integral to the film and for me it transports the story into a place that immediately disorientates a lot of people – in a good and magical way.”
Like Dondo, Mr Barrington surfs. Unlike Dondo, his entry into the sport came far from the shores of the Western Isles.
“I didn’t grow up surfing because it wasn’t such a big thing when I was a kid, I got into it much later in life.”
In Hawaii, in fact, when he was a 21-year-old photographer working on a cruise ship.
“I had a few hours shore leave. I went for a wander and realised there were people surfing. It was the beginning of the season, so it was a good time to learn.
“I managed to catch a wave the first time I tried which was just the most euphoric elated feeling I’ve ever had. It carried me into the beach. I felt like I was on the board for 20 or 30 seconds. Then I tried to repeat it for the rest of the day, and I couldn’t.”
Newcomer Louis McCartney plays Dondo and the role of Sas goes to Irish actress Ella Lily Hyland. Also starring are Fiona Bell, Sex Education’s Chinenye Ezeudu, and Anders Hayward, currently appearing in Fringe hit Adults at the Traverse Theatre.
READ MORE: TROUBLED FILM FESTIVAL UNVEILS LINE-UP
The £2.6 million production was backed by Screen Scotland, BBC Films and the British Film Institute. Those organisations also provided support for last year’s EIFF opener, another debut feature from a Scottish director: Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun, which went on to garner an Oscar nomination. No pressure then.
Come tomorrow night’s World Premiere Mr Barrington won’t be the only one breathing a sigh of relief. Joining him will be the organisers of the EIFF itself given that the festival looked doomed when its parent organisation, the Centre for the Moving Image, fell into administration in October. This year’s abbreviated EIFF is running under the auspices of the Edinburgh International Festival but that it is running at all is something of a miracle.
“One of the nicest things for me was at the launch of the film festival listening to the speeches and realising how close the festival had come to not managing to function this year, realising how much it means to people that it has stayed on its feet and is going to happen,” said Mr Barrington. “That was a very strong moment for me – the realisation that my film will be the one which is shown at this particular festival.”
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