Aftersun is the shattering debut from Scottish writer/director Charlotte Wells, about a young father and his daughter on holiday.
11-year-old Sophie and her dad Calum (Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal, both with astonishing performances) are on holiday in Turkey in the late 1990s. Despite a rough start - such as Calum’s broken arm and a room with a double bed rather than twins - it should be bliss. The ‘Macarena’ is blaring, the warm air is filled with the smell of sunscreen and Sophie is capturing it all on her mini-DV cam... However, cracks begin to emerge in the façade Calum is trying to maintain to give Sophie a perfect holiday.
After its premiere in Cannes, Aftersun quickly became one of the most talked about films of the festival - and it is easy to see why. This is a delicate heartbreak of a film - an intimate story of grief, mental illness, father/daughter love and self-discovery.
Screening as part of our Past Encounters season (celebrating the 30th edition of Encounters Festival) the season concludes with a special screening of Charlotte Wells’ first feature during the festival weekend. The Scottish filmmaker’s first short Tuesday premiered at Encounters in 2015, and her 2022 feature debut Aftersun announced her as a formidable filmmaking talent.
Encounters was the first festival to invite any of my films (and the only to screen all three of my shorts) and the first I attended as a filmmaker. Other invitations followed that first screening and I feel certain that Encounters opened the door to the industry for me. I feel forever grateful for that, and for the talks and events I attended.
— Charlotte Wells, writer & director of Aftersun