Davies is here to present two films at this year’s festival. A Quiet Passion, Davies’ portrait of 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, stars Cynthia Nixon and was described as ‘an absolute drop-dead masterwork’ by the New Yorker; and Sunset Song, his ‘ beautiful and brutal’ adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel of the same name, stars Peter Mullan and Agyness Deyn.

Join us to hear director Terence Davies in conversation with writer Fiona Samuel, as they discuss his approach to cinema and his life’s work. The discussion takes place in the Wintergarden, following the Sunday screening of A Quiet Passion.

Born in Liverpool, Terence Davies is one of the most distinctive talents to have emerged from British cinema in the last thirty years. He shows a passionate concern with film craft, and his approach to filmmaking has been called “the cinematic equivalent of literature’s magic realism.” His feature film titles include Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The Long Day Closes(1992), The Neon Bible (1995), The House of Mirth (2000) and The Deep Blue Sea (2011). All of his films have been critically acclaimed and received numerous nominations and awards in Britain and internationally.

"Arguably the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies is a poet of the cinema, at once austere and passionate … His films’ combination of art-film style and reverence for working-class popular culture is unique in British cinema." - Film Critic and writer Tom Charity