Summer In The Shade

2017, 93 minutes

This is a film about fear. It focuses on the delicate space between childhood and adulthood – the point where the outer world can feel confusing and the inner-world disturbingly real.

Twelve-year-old Grace and eleven-year-old Asta have been best friends for as long as they can remember. At the end of a long summer, they go on holiday to a small cottage in Cornwall with Asta’s bohemian single mum, Kate. A self-appointed guardian, Kate hosts Grace in the wake of her parents' separation. Privately, daddy’s girl Grace has become fixated on religion, preoccupied with sin and evil after overhearing her father talking dirty to his lover. Her obsessions cloud her existence and overcome her consciousness. Asta, a more innocent and boisterous girl, enjoys playing fantastical games and musing over the paranormal with Grace. But as Grace’s darkness blossoms with her emerging womanhood, Asta finds herself in a dangerous position. The girls build an intricate fort in the quiet of an ancient forest, working in blissful, youthful companionship. The next day they discover a young homeless man, Sid, has used their fort as a shelter. The girls attack him, believing him to be a demon, injuring his head with a rock. Later, they discover him being looked after by Kate, who is excited by the handsome stranger and eager to help another wounded soul. Sid joins the family and the odd foursome spend the next week of the holiday together, finding themselves confronting sinister underlying forces.

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