ANDREW HAIGH

Writer-director

Andrew Haigh cut his teeth in the editing suite, on such mainstream hits as Gladiator and Notting Hill, but his own shorts display a much more indie sensibility. His debut, Oil, employs fast cutting and voiceover to create a poetic and poignant portrait of a man reminiscing over his departed lover. Cahuenga Blvd and Markings, both shot in California during a year Haigh studied at a Los Angeles film school, are atmospheric portraits of misfits and loners. This year, he moved from self-funding to working with real money on Five Miles Out, about a young girl sent from home while her sister dies of anorexia, which was made under the UKFC's Cinema Extreme umbrella and is now inpost-production. Haigh has also been shooting a semiimprovised micro-budget feature film over six months about London-based rent boys, while developing two features. 'I'm not interested in easy answers or conclusions or an over-emphasis on plot,' says Haigh. 'It is the slow struggle, the muddle, to get places that interests me.'