''Native'' is a 2016 British

sci-fi film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

directed by Daniel Fitzsimmons, written by Fitzsimmons and

Neil Atkinson Neil Atkinson (born 21 January 1981) is a Liverpool based writer, broadcaster and film producer. Atkinson is the host, ‘Content Manager’, and one of the main writers and business developers behind online football and culture magazine ''The An ...

and starring

Rupert Graves Rupert Simeon Graves (born 30 June 1963) is an English film, television, and theatre actor. He is known for his roles in ''A Room with a View'', '' Maurice'', '' The Madness of King George'' and '' The Forsyte Saga''. From 2010 to 2017 he star ...

and

Ellie Kendrick Eleanor Lucy V. Kendrick (born 8 June 1990) is an English actress best known for playing Anne Frank in the BBC's 2009 miniseries ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', Ivy Morris in the first series of the 2010 revived '' Upstairs Downstairs'', and Meera ...

Plot

Two pilots are sent on a long distance flight through space; they are responding to a transmission from a far away galaxy. Throughout the journey they will struggle; for one of the pilots will experience the human condition, though they seem not actually to be human. Suffering a loss, one of the pilots will lose touch with the reality he has always known. He must face this new reality.

Cast

as Cane. *

as Eva. *

Leanne Best Leanne Best (born 15 June 1979) is an English actress. She is the niece of former Beatle, Pete Best. She trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and presently lives in South West (London sub region), southwest London. She is kno ...

, Joe McAuley, * Pollyanna McIntosh, *

Daniel Brocklebank Daniel Brocklebank (born 21 December 1979) is a British actor, best known for portraying the roles of Ivan Jones in the ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale'' (2005–2006), and Billy Mayhew in ITV's other long-running soap ''Coronation Street'' (2014 ...

, *

Ian Hart Ian Davies (born 8 October 1964), better known by his stage name Ian Hart, is an English actor. His most notable roles are Rabbit in the Channel Four drama miniseries '' One Summer'' (1983), Joe O'Reilly in the biopic ''Michael Collins'' (1996 ...

, *

Chiara D'Anna Chiara D'Anna is an Italian actress, director, writer and academic notable for working with the writer and director Peter Strickland in Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy. While studying Geology at the University of Turin she join ...

Reviews

''Native'' holds a 43% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The film is described as "smart" and "elegant" by

Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdasher ...

in the ''Guardian''.

Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at ...

in ''Empire'' magazine describes it as "ambitious, unusual and thought-provoking". In ''The Times'' Ed Potton calls it a “script full of promise, with provocative things to say about empathy, obedience and individualism”.

Production

Shot predominantly in Dagenham and Formby Beach in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

in 2014, co-writer and co-producer Atkinson said in an interview with the ''

Liverpool Echo The ''Liverpool Echo'' is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales – a subsidiary company of Reach plc and is based in St Paul's Square, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Sunday, and is Liver ...

'': “Everyone at Formby beach was helpful. Dogwalkers gave us a wide berth but the problem was the tide – we had a ticking clock and finished filming with the water up to our director of photography’s knees.”

Awards

The film won the feature film award at the 2016

Boston Science Fiction Film Festival The Boston Science-Fiction Film Festival hosted its 47th-anniversary festival in February of 2022, making it the 2nd oldest independent genre film festival in the US. The festival takes place each year in February, the week ending on President's D ...

. It was nominated for best film and director at the 2016 Bogotá Film Festival.

References

External links

* British science fiction films 2016 films 2010s British films {{2010s-UK-film-stub