Author Topic: Josh O'Connor, Alec Secăreanu find love in God's Own Country (Sept 1 2017 UK)  (Read 35308 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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[youtube=950,550]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0c5vqVK6t0[/youtube]
GOD'S OWN COUNTRY Official Trailer (2017) LGBT
Josh O'Connor (Johnny Saxby) Exclusive Interview

Published on Aug 29, 2017






Stefan Pape from HeyUGuys interviews Josh O'Connor for his movie God's Own Country which is directed by Francis Lee and also stars Alec Secăreanu.

Plot: Spring. Yorkshire. Young farmer Johnny Saxby numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker
for lambing season ignites an intense relationship that sets Johnny on a new path.









[youtube=950,550]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhgJ5PCA6_Q[/youtube]
GOD'S OWN COUNTRY Official Trailer (2017) LGBT
Director Francis Lee and Alec Secăreanu (as Gheorghe)
Exclusive Interview

Published on Aug 29, 2017






Stefan Pape from HeyUGuys interviews writer/director Francis Lee and actor Alec Secăreanu for their movie God's Own Country.

The interview took place in Alec's native Romania at the 2017 Transylvanian Film Festival.







« Last Edit: November 13, 2017, 02:31:59 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline gattaca

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One couple left after about the 2nd sex scene, they should have read the promo material. It is much more explicit than BBM but I guess that is again a sign of how movies have developed in 10 years.

I enjoyed "God's own country" but I would not put it on a level with BBM. It was better than "Call me by my name" but did not hit me emotionally in the same way as "The man in the Orange shirt" nor of course BBM.

Thanks for the review!  I'm psyched.
Not surprising.  If the m/m sex was more explicit than the 2nd night in the tent in BBM, then there's many people in the US who should avoid the film.   When BBM showed in the theaters here, I saw a m/f couple leave after the 2nd night in the tent... and they were were as disruptive as they could during their exit.  talking and complaining during their exit from near the front of the theater.

V.
How do you hide when you are running from yourself?

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Fifty years after the Sexual Offences Act partially legalised male homosexuality in Britain, the parallels with Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain  show how far attitudes towards LGBT people have changed – the sensibility of Francis Lee's God's Own Country  is decidedly post-gay. Yet the explicit references to Ang Lee’s western are unnecessary – God's Own Country  is one of the most exciting British debuts of the past decade.




http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/gods-own-country-francis-lee-males-love-dales



God's Own Country
unites males in the Dales
Both post-gay and pre-Brexit, Francis Lee’s debut feature is anything
but a straightforward coming-out tale. Instead it’s an eerily beautiful
love story between two men and the wild Yorkshire landscape.


by Alex Davidson
31 August 2017



Alec Secăreanu, on top, and Josh O'Connor in God's Own Country



An early scene in Francis Lee’s debut feature, in which Romanian migrant worker Gheorghe (Alec Secăreanu) washes semi-naked in the background while Johnny (Josh O’Connor), the moody gay son of a Yorkshire farmer, resists gazing at him, is a clear reference to an identically framed scene in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain  (2005). At one point, a character inhales the scent of another’s shirt, recalling the ending of Lee’s film.

Fifty years after the Sexual Offences Act partially legalised male homosexuality in Britain, the parallels with Brokeback Mountain  show how far attitudes towards LGBT people have changed – the sensibility of God's Own Country  is decidedly post-gay. Yet the explicit references to Lee’s western are unnecessary – God's Own Country  is one of the most exciting British debuts of the past decade, and homages to better-known films threaten to distract from Lee’s powerful vision.

A straightforward coming-out story this is not. None of the characters in the film reacts negatively to the fact that the two men are having a relationship. Johnny’s father Martin (Ian Hart) and grandmother Deirdre (Gemma Jones) have too many other concerns, related to ill health and their failing farm, to acknowledge the men’s love, though the grandmother’s wry half-smile as she is dismissed from their company suggests she may know more than she lets on.











The hatred a couple of the villagers show towards Gheorghe is motivated by xenophobia rather than homophobia. Johnny’s self-loathing at the start of the film manifests itself through his unwanted work and family responsibilities rather than internalised homophobia, though he clearly fears intimacy, as he bluntly rejects the suggestion of a date with one of his recent sexual conquests (“We? No.”).

Lee has explored the plight of Yorkshire farmers in his short films: the fictional The Farmer’s Wife  (2012) and the documentary The Last Smallholder  (2014) both followed farmers threatened by hardship and the changing landscape around them. Despite his expressed aim of portraying the harsh, unforgiving Yorkshire landscape as it really is, from the opening shot of the farm at dawn the countryside is tinged with eerie beauty. The relationship between the two men isn’t the only romance in the film, as the camera slowly falls in love with rural Yorkshire, exploding in the end credits into a gorgeous colour montage of archive footage showing farmhands at work in the fields, beautifully accompanied by Patrick Wolf's haunting song The Days.

This sequence is glorious, perhaps a little foolishly romantic, but the sudden, unexpected burst of dreamy nostalgia is a welcome moment of elation. The title of the film, a phrase affectionately used to describe Yorkshire, is devoid of any irony in these closing minutes.

O’Connor and Secăreanu are superb, with O’Connor conveying the vulnerability of the bitter, potentially unsympathetic Johnny – for while it’s clear what the kind, smart Gheorghe gives to Johnny, what the latter has to offer him is more abstract. No one is more hostile to Gheorghe, initially, than Johnny. He is openly racist: “Are you a Paki or something?” he asks him, before going on to call him “gypsy” and “gyppo”.

At first, Gheorghe’s attraction to Johnny is a combination of lust and an apparent need to rescue the vulnerable (he saves a runt lamb, literally breathing life into its lungs). Secăreanu’s deadpan style adds a dash of humour to some of the later scenes, which recall Aki Kaurismäki. Deirdre and Martin also thaw as the film progresses – a key scene, in which one of them simply says “thank you”, is as moving as the young men’s romance.












Production of the film began in the run-up to Brexit, the potential consequences of which haunt the story, though Britain’s imminent exit from the European Union is never mentioned. From the hostility shown towards Gheorghe by strangers in the local pub to the struggles of farmers, whose support from EU subsidies may soon be taken away, the stance of the film would seem to favour the pro-remain camp.

While Martin and Deirdre cling to outmoded, traditional farming methods, it is the migrant worker who suggests new ways of operating that may save their farm from disaster. God's Own Country, alongside recent British films such as Sally Potter’s The Party, a satire riffing on class and politics, and Gurinder Chadha’s end-of-empire drama Viceroy’s House,  is surely destined to be framed within the context of Brexit in future years.











UK release date 1 September 2017

Distributor Picturehouse Entertainment

Production companies: Shudder Films, Inflammable Films

Cast: Josh O'Connor, Alec Secăreanu, Gemma Jones, Ian Hart, Harry Lister Smith, Patsy Ferran, Melanie Kilburn, Liam Thomas

Director-screenwriter: Francis Lee

Producers: Manon Ardisson, Jack Tarling

Director of photography: Joshua James Richards

Production designer: Stephane Collonge

Costume designer: Sian Jenkins

Editor: Chris Wyatt

Music: A Winged Victory for the Sullen

104 minutes

United Kingdom 2017

Certificate 15  


picturehouseentertainment.co.uk/films/gods-own-country/

« Last Edit: October 15, 2017, 07:48:12 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
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Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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[youtube=999,625]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdfIYwiIzlU[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdfIYwiIzlU

GOD'S OWN COUNTRY (2017) TIFF Original
Alec Secăreanu (as Gheorghe)
Exclusive Interview
Published on Nov 3, 2017






Enjoy the exclusive interview with Alec Secăreanu as he discusses preparing for his starring role in Francis Lee's new film God's Own Country.

Set in the remote farming country of North Yorkshire, Francis Lee's quietly assured feature debut focuses on Johnny (Josh O'Connor), who numbs the frustration of his lonely existence on his family's farm with nightly binge-drinking at the local pub and casual sex. When a handsome Romanian migrant worker (Alec Secăreanu) arrives to take up temporary work on the farm, Johnny suddenly finds himself having to deal with emotions he has never felt before. As the two begin working closely together during lambing season, an intense relationship starts to form, one which could change Johnny's life forever.









"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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GOD'SOWNCOUNTRYFANART
https://twitter.com/KcEazyworld?lang=en

by Kc‏ @KcEazyworld


"Gheorghe & Johnny"
Evidently I'm still obsessed with this film.

by KcEazyWorld https://twitter.com/KcEazyworld?lang=en


(You can now order the prints and other products from my store at
http://www.society6.com/kceazyworld
)



6th November 2017 10:58PM 89 Likes

#Josh O'Connor  #Johnny  #Alec Secăreanu  #Gheorghe  #actor  #@gocfilm
#God's Own Country  #Francis Lee  #North Yorkshire  #The Dales
#movies  #film #lgbtmovie  #Protagonist Pictures
#art  #my art  #artist  #portrait  #drawing  #fanart  
#Kc‏ @KcEazyworld


CALLMEBYYOURNAMEFANART by Kc‏ @KcEazyworld


  


« Last Edit: November 13, 2017, 09:50:27 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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GOD'SOWNCOUNTRYFANART
https://twitter.com/johnderland

by John! ✨ @johnderland


"Johnny & Gheorghe"
I saw @gocfilm yesterday
and just had to doodle Johnny and Gheorghe
(and a lamb obviously). Go and see it!.

by John! ✨ @johnderland https://twitter.com/johnderland



6th November 2017 10:38PM 135 Likes

#Josh O'Connor  #Johnny  #Alec Secăreanu  #Gheorghe  #actor  #@gocfilm
#God's Own Country  #Francis Lee  #North Yorkshire  #The Dales
#movies  #film #lgbtmovie  #Protagonist Pictures
#art  #my art  #artist  #portrait  #drawing  #fanart  
#John!  #@johnderland


CALLMEBYYOURNAMEFANART by John! ✨ @johnderland


  


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Francis Lee's God's Own Country  has drawn many comparisons to the seminal 2005 cowboy saga, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain,  and while he accepts this as a compliment, he insists the two have little in common beyond their pastoral backdrop. For one, God’s Own Country  is not set in a homophobic society. “No one has to marry Anne Hathaway,” deadpans Lee. There’s an opportunity here for a long-term commitment, if Johnny Saxby chooses to seize it.



https://www.out.com/entertainment/2017/11/03/love-range


Love On The Range:
The Story of UK's Gay Sleeper Hit
God's Own Country
In Francis Lee’s directorial debut, romance heats up
between two young farmers in the Yorkshire wilds.

by COLIN CRUMMY
FRI, 2017-11-03 11:01



Alec Secăreanu and Josh O'Connor in God's Own Country



Few newcomers have embraced method acting as faithfully as the two leads of this fall’s seductive indie God’s Own Country, a modern romance set in the rustic community of West Yorkshire. “I don’t know the best way to say this,” says English-born actor Josh O’Connor, who stars as the young sheep farmer Johnny Saxby, “but when I put my arm into the backside of a cow, I did it for real. We delivered lambs on set. Everything happened as and when.”

Those looking for an idyllic, swoony escapist fantasy might be disappointed with the results, but they’d be in the minority. Since its premiere last January at Sundance, God’s Own Country  has racked up awards there and at the Berlin and Edinburgh film festivals for its realistic depiction of working-class rural life and the LGBT experience.

With his first full-length feature, Francis Lee has crafted an of-the-moment spin on the classic conundrums of love—how to give it and how to receive it. His story is not one of instant attraction.  Instead, chemistry slowly builds between Johnny and his hired help, the Romanian migrant Gheorghe Ionescu, played by Alec Secăreanu. At first, a serious relationship doesn’t seem a likely path for the recalcitrant Johnny, who, despite being blessed with a statuesque beauty, is cursed with a tough British stoicism. Abandoned by old friends who’ve moved on and struggling to keep the family farm afloat after his father suffers a stroke, he succumbs to bouts of binge drinking and casual sex with locals he picks up at the pub or the cattle mart.







Alec Secăreanu





Johnny’s problem isn’t one of sexual orientation, but of intimacy—something 48-year-old actor-turned-writer-director Lee was keen to explore. “The film is not really about the trials and tribulations of sexuality,” says the Yorkshire native, who shot God’s Own Country  near his own father’s farm. “It’s very much the journey of a person who hasn’t gotten to the point where he can love and be loved.”

Enter the dark-haired, gently handsome Gheorghe, the sole respondent to the Saxbys’ ad for a seasonal hand for their ailing homestead. While Johnny is hardly averse to a roll in the hay with another man, he’s initially hostile to the foreigner. Meanwhile, Gheorghe is less than impressed with his new boss. “Gheorghe thinks Johnny is a jackass,” says 32-year-old Secăreanu, who was born and raised in Bucharest. “He has developed some survival skills over time because he just wants to work and be able to survive. He’s trying to concentrate on that.” Gheorghe’s past remains a mystery, largely because no one asks him about it or wants to know.

Though the film was completed before Brexit, the U.K.’s decision to leave the E.U. has made certain themes in God’s Own Country  more pointed, says Lee. “We didn’t re-edit it after the referendum, but Brexit just made the characters more poignant,” he says. “It just became apparent that what could potentially happen now is that two people from two different countries in Europe could fall in love and not be able to be together.”

Despite their mutual distrust and the exhausting nature of the labor at hand, sparks eventually fly. The tension reaches its peak one cold spring night on the farm’s top fell, where the pair has decamped for lambing season. When Johnny makes a typically aggressive, one-sided move, he meets his match in Gheorghe.







Josh O’Connor






“Johnny is always in control and takes what he needs from sex,” says 27-year-old O’Connor, whom viewers might recognize from PBS’s much tamer period drama The Durrells  in Corfu and the 2016 film Florence Foster Jenkins. “He doesn’t know how to experience sex in a pleasurable way—it’s an act of need. Suddenly he has this powerful man in control. Allowing yourself to give in is so important.”

Much like the rest of God’s Own Country, the pivotal, explicit scene was choreographed to exacting detail. The director also created exhaustive backstories for Johnny and Gheorghe’s characters, even if much of it is never seen onscreen. Says Lee, “We looked at sexual histories, where they bought their clothes, whether or not they took sugar in their tea.”

To get acquainted with the movie’s milieu, O’Connor and Secăreanu lived on separate, neighboring farms for two weeks ahead of shooting the film. They grafted alongside actual Yorkshire farmers and assisted with livestock, but they stayed apart until that first sex scene, after which they moved into the same house. “Our relationship as friends started to develop at the same time as the relationship onscreen,” says Secăreanu, reminiscing about the actors’ cozier times at home, which included cooking together and watching recent queer touchstones like Weekend  and Brokeback Mountain, which Lee had assigned to them as homework.







Director Francis Lee






Lee’s film has drawn many comparisons to the seminal 2005 cowboy saga, and while he accepts this as a compliment, he insists the two have little in common beyond their pastoral backdrop. For one, God’s Own Country  is not set in a homophobic society. “No one has to marry Anne Hathaway,” deadpans Lee. There’s an opportunity here for a long-term commitment, if Johnny Saxby chooses to seize it.

It’s this hopeful proposition that will captivate moviegoers who see God’s Own Country. “People are so used to these tragic queer characters—fated to unrequited love or rejection or loneliness or isolation,” says Lee. “What audiences are saying to us is that it’s really lovely to see an authentic story that doesn’t end that way.”





Photography: Sophy Holland
Styling: Lorna McGee at A&R Creative
Grooming: Kate O’Brien
Photographed at the George Inn London


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"