After premiering at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s directorial debut FARMING is set for release in UK cinemas on 11th October 2019.
Based on his own life story, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s FARMING charts the extraordinary journey of a young fostered Nigerian boy who, struggling to find an identity, falls in with a skinhead gang in 1980’s England.
At six weeks old, Enitan (Zephan Amissah) is left in the care of a white working- class family in the dock-town of Tilbury, in Essex. His new surrogate mother, Ingrid (Kate Beckinsale), makes for a complex, but dubious foster parent. Unsure of his place in the world, and lacking a mother’s love, desperate to belong the teenage Enitan (Damson Idris) spirals into self-destruction, falling in with a local skinhead gang led by Levi (John Dagleish).
When all seems lost, a sympathetic teacher, Miss Dapo (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), offers him one last shot at redemption.
Told with brutal honesty, FARMING is an unflinching autobiographical portrait of a young man who must battle the odds and realise that, in a world of hate, his toughest battle will be learning to love himself.
The cast is led by Damson Idris (Snowfall, Black Mirror), Kate Beckinsale (The Widow, Pearl Harbour), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle, A Wrinkle in Time), Olivier Award-winner John Dagleish (Christopher Robin, Mary Poppins Returns), Jaime Winstone (Love, Rosie, Tomb Raider), Ann Mitchell (The Deep Blue Sea, Widows), Genevieve Nnaji (Road to Yesterday, Lionheart), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Oz, Lost), Lee Ross (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, White Gold) and Zephan Amissah.
FARMING is written and directed by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and executive produced by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, David Ostrander, Richard Abend,Frédéric Fiore (Revenge) and Eric Tavitian. The film is produced by Michael London, p.g.a. (Milk, Snowfall), Janice Williams, p.g.a. (Trumbo, The Magicians), François Ivernel, p.g.a. (Slumdog Millionaire, The Queen) and Andrew Levitas (The White Crow, Georgetown).
FARMING will be released in cinemas across the UK on 11th October 2019 by Lionsgate UK.
