BRIDGEND
Bridgend
Directed by Jeppe Rønde
Denmark, UK | 2015 | 104 min | thriller, drama | English
Bridgend follows Sara and her dad, Dave as they arrive to a small village in Bridgend County. The village is haunted by suicides amongst its young inhabitants, and Sara falls dangerously in love with one of the teenagers, Jamie while Dave as the town’s new policeman tries to stop the mysterious chain of suicides. The film is an uncompromising story focused on the relationship between vulnerable teenagers and their parents who are left in the dark.
The story of the film is based on a mysterious suicide cluster that took place in Bridgend County, a small former coal-mining province in Wales. Between December 2007 and january 2012 seventy-nine suicides were officially committed in the area. Most of the victims were teenagers, they hanged themselves and left no suicide notes. Danish documentary filmmaker Jeppe Rønde followed the teenagers from the area for six years and wrote the script based on their life stories. Bridgend is Rønde’s fiction film debut. It is entirely shot on location in Wales, with many of the local teenagers casted as actors.
Cast & Crew
Director: Jeppe Rønde
Screenplay: Jeppe Rønde, Torben Bech, Peter Asmussen
Cinematography: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck
Editing: Olivier Bugge Coutté
Cast: Hannah Murray, Steven Waddington, Josh O’Connor, Adrian Rawlins, Patricia Potter, Nia Roberts, Aled Thomas
Producers: Michel Schønnemann (Blenkov & Schønnemann Pictures), Malene Blenkov (Blenkov & Schønnemann Pictures)
Jeppe RøndeDenmark
Festivals & Awards
Göteborg International Film Festival
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Groningen International Film Festival
Cracow Off Camera International Film Festival
New York Tribeca Film Festival
Brussels Film Festival
Valletta Film Festival
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Odessa International Film Festival
Bogota Independent Film Festival
Espoo Cine
Athens International Film Festival
Bergen International Film Festival
Haifa International Film Festival
Philadelphia Film Festival
Braunschweig International Film Festival
Scanorama Film Festival
Cairo Film Festival
Gijon Film Festival
International Film Festival of Kerala
Bratislava Febiofest Film Festival
press quotes
Jeppe Rønde’s starkly involving dramatization feels like a Joy Division dirge come to life.
Time Out NY
The movie could have played the story for cheap creeps, Ronde instead puts a sharp focus on how its heroine’s natural adolescent confusion, romanticism and sadness are magnified by the continuing loss of her peers — a viewpoint that doesn’t make the story any less unsettling.
Rolling Stone
This is ripped-from-the-headlines cinema reformulated as real-world horror film, with a shivery stylistic nod to the crime drama of Ronde’s homeland.
Variety
Bridgend is (…) indulgently moody, and sits alongside productions like Jamie Dead or the Twilight franchise. (…) Rønde adds a distinctly Nordic noir feel.
Cineuropa
