UK filmmaker Michael Winterbottom says his upcoming Sky series This England has not been revised to include the ‘partygate’ revelations, that emerged about Boris Johnson after the series had shot.
Currently in post-production ahead of a launch later in 2022, This England depicts the first wave of the Covid-19 virus in England in spring 2019, including the response of now outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson and his government.
“We started writing it in the summer of 2020; the end of the first wave at the end of May was going to be our end point,” said Winterbottom, speaking to Screen at Sarajevo Film Festival where he is giving a masterclass on Friday 19. “We weren’t going to go beyond that, no matter what. Then by the time we were filming, it was back to another lockdown. So we were making it in the middle of it all, but our story stops at the end of May.
“Rightly or wrongly I don’t know, but we decided not to try and revise what we’d done – this is our version of events.”
“It’s a sort of fiction,” continued the filmmaker. “The last episode is the most fictional – ‘lessons Boris Johnson learnt from the first wave’. Which it turns out were not as many lessons as we thought he might have learned.”
Kenneth Branagh plays Johnson, with Ophelia Lovibond as his third wife Carrie Symonds.
Possibly too sympathetic
In researching the series, Winterbottom and his team spoke to doctors, nurses, care home workers, scientists and government officials. The director also responded to the idea that the series might soften the image of a highly-controversial figure.
“It’s certainly not trying to be a hatchet job,” said Winterbottom. “I’ve no idea what people will think when they see it; very few people have seen it. It’s hard to judge whether people will see it as being an attack on Boris Johnson or an attack on the government – it’s not intended as that.
“Or whether they’ll see it as too sympathetic – possibly too sympathetic, that’s more likely I think. But it’s more supposed to be ‘this is what happened’. Our assumption is that everyone was trying to do their best; everyone was trying to respond to something that hadn’t really happened before, and was moving very quickly.”
Winterbottom said This England was chosen as a new title by Sky “in their wisdom” earlier this year, in place of original title This Sceptred Isle – both phrases come from the same passage in Shakespeare’s play Richard II. He acknowledged that “the various shenanigans about Boris Johnson” had thrown the release date into question, but that Sky are currently pushing ahead to release later this year as planned.
The filmmaker is back in Sarajevo for the first time in seven years; he has an intimate history with the city, having set third feature Welcome To Sarajevo there during the siege of the mid-1990s. Thirty years since the time that film was set, Winterbottom said he sensed a frustration with “the feeling of political settlement”.
“The impression I got talking to people was that the post-war settlement worked in the basics, in terms of keeping the peace; but doesn’t necessarily allow a real dynamism within Bosnia,” he said. “When you think about the Second World War, within 20 years of that France and Germany were collaborating at the heart of Europe. That sense of putting it behind you and moving on, which happened in that case, hasn’t happened here as much.”
Pre-production is currently underway in Italy for Winterbottom’s next feature Promised Land, ahead of a shoot starting in early October. Starring Douglas Booth, Harry Melling and Russian actress Irina Starshenbaum, the film will tell the story of the 1948 partition of Palestine, and subsequent creation of the state of Israel.
Several of his films, including 2022 documentary Eleven Days In May about bombings in Gaza the previous year, have dealt with conflict. Winterbottom sees his role as “responding to events around the world”; and is sceptical about cultural boycotts of countries including Russia.
“In relation to the new war, it’s problematic when the first response is ‘lets boycott everything from Russia,’” he said. “There are situations where a genuine boycott can make a difference,” but he didn’t believe any response should “start with cultural boycott.”
Sarajevo Film Festival continues until Friday 19.
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