Writer-director Stephen Fingleton has made one of the most harrowing films of the year with his feature debut The Survivalist, but the Enniskillen man has told TEN that's it's also a story of hope.
Taking place after civilisation has collapsed, The Survivalist stars Martin McCann (Killing Bono), Mia Goth (A Cure for Wellness) and Olwen Fouéré (This Must be the Place) and sees a loner's code tested when a mother and daughter arrive at his cabin seeking food.
Martin McCann in The Survivalist
Filmed in Ballymoney, Co Antrim on a tight budget, the film mixes human savagery and natural beauty, with Fingleton telling TEN that the lessons he learned from watching Hollywood masters as a teenager stood him in good stead.
"The films of Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis and Joe Dante were very, very big inspirations," he explained. "Back to the Future was probably my favourite film, and film series, growing up; I thought it was just brilliant. And obviously, Spielberg - in my teenage years Jurassic Park was a huge film."
"Although my film is very harsh, there is hope within it - something I learned from those filmmakers was the necessity of it," he continued. "You can take somebody on a very tough journey - a journey you'll break down in tears from - but as long as you've hope you can go through it."
Mia Goth and Olwen Fouéré in The Survivalist
While many reviewers have described The Survivalist as post-apocalyptic, its creator prefers the term "post-event".
"When you say post-apocalyptic I think Mad Max, yet The Survivalist is a very, very different film," said the director. "It would be closer to a film like Son of Saul than Mad Max, because it's about the choices characters make in a time of terrible calamity. My attraction was showing a world, not through any scenes of grand destruction, but from how the world had changed the characters."
Stephen Fingleton on set
When asked what his film says about human nature, Fingleton replied: "I think we're capable of bad things; I think we're capable of great things. I think, ultimately, our time will pass, but nature and the environment will continue. If you look at the actions of the characters in the film, some of them are very shocking, some of them are very animalistic but, ultimately, there is a legacy that we leave behind."
Fingleton won the Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director at the British Independent Film Awards in December and is up for the Outstanding Debut award at Sunday night's BAFTAs in London.
Stephen Fingleton with The Survivalist stars (L-R) Mia Goth, Martin McCann and Olwen Fouéré at New York's Tribeca Film Festival last April
"I'm really glad the film is getting the exposure it's getting because of the work my actors and my team did on the film," he enthused. "I really like the recognition that they're getting because people weren't getting paid a lot of money. They were doing it for the craft and their work is so invisible because they've done their jobs well."
The Survivalist is out now in cinemas and on demand.
