At The Foot Of A Tree

2009, 85 minutes

In Colchester, the oldest recorded town in Britain, an 11-year-old boy seeks heartfelt and poetic revenge for the beating of his father.

One night in the oldest recorded town in Britain, Colchester, a father stumbles home beaten up by his own relatives. He is bleeding and in need of hospital attention. His wife cries in despair, as this is not the first time. The commotion awakens Alfie, their freckle faced son. The boy is told to go back to bed, but overhears his mother reveal all to her eldest son. The young boy is heartbroken, his father is no longer invincible. With this, the normally well-behaved golden haired boy immediately sets himself on a course of revenge. Without hesitation, though very clumsily and sneakily, he bikes across town, breaks into the culprits' house and exacts his bloody vengeance. When the truth is revealed, the family conjure up a plan to hide him, but this is neither something Alfie wants nor was expecting - and so, from this point on, by foot and by pedal, Alfie is on the run from the trailing consequences and the recurring thoughts of the actions that he took out of love and love alone. We're taken on a complex journey into Alfie's simple, circling recurring dreams, nightmares and conscious thoughts, whilst he struggles to catch his breath, chasing the safe haven of a certain tree.

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