Lucy Halliday: Last News

With its abundance of flickery grain, exceedingly credible period production, and eminently authentic ensemble, UK filmmaker Georgia Oakley’s astonishing debut feature “Blue Jean” — which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week, no doubt primed to pick up a swath of gongs and laurels — could well be a relic exhumed from the back cupboards of a dusty film archive.  READ MORE: Venice Film Festival Preview: 16 Must-See Films To Watch Set amid Margaret Thatcher’s reign of terror in the late ‘80s, the little-known Rosy McEwen puts in a calling card performance for the ages as Jean, a closeted lesbian gym teacher torn asunder by the emergence of Section 28: barbaric British legislation that, until 2003, prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality” across the country.

K.J. Yossman In the run-up to Cannes, the British Film Institute and the British Council held the Great8 showcase, which presented eight U.K.