An affecting tale of a boy navigating a young offender institution, directed by one of the stars of Netflix drama Adolescence, explores the roots of what leads troubled young men astray.
Animol, which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Perspectives section, follows 15-year-old Troy as he finds solace behind bars in his bond with fellow inmate Krystian.
Director Ashley Walters is perhaps best known to international audiences for his role in Adolescence as police officer Luke Bascombe but has had a prolific career as a musician and actor in the UK.
Animol sees him step behind the camera for his feature-length directing debut after acting roles which have often delved into the realities of Britain’s deprived inner cities, such as in the show Top Boy.
He says that his work has often drawn on his own experiences growing up in a single-parent household where he was “desperately looking for male role models”.
“I’ve kind of made it my life’s work… that kids I see that are going through the same thing as me, I want to help them,” Walters told a group of journalists including AFP.
In a media discourse that often demonises boys who make bad choices, Walters said he wanted the film to spotlight their vulnerability.
“We’ve got to remember they’re kids… they’re babies.”
‘Bad way to live’
In Animol, Troy − a taut yet tender performance by Tut Nyuot − immediately has to decide which allegiances to make to avoid the random, senseless violence and other pitfalls the institution harbours.
When his friendship with Krystian develops into something more, they are faced with the potential consequences of the taboo nature of their relationship.
Walters says that he was no stranger to homophobia growing up, adding that the prejudice “tainted me for many years”.
Meeting LGBTQ people in the entertainment industry and seeing some of his own friends struggle to come out opened his mind, Walters said.
For many, though, homosexuality remains unmentionable.
“There’s people in this film that haven’t told their parents they’re in this film because of homophobia,” Walter said.
“I just think that’s a really bad way for anyone to be living.”
Stephen Graham, a frequent collaborator of Walters’s who has also been garlanded for his role in Adolescence as Eddie Miller, stars in Animol as welfare officer Claypole.
In one scene, Claypole talks to the boys about shame and its power to stunt their lives or even end them.
Walters said for the characters in the film, shame “is something that they’re all trying to avoid… that they all feel every day, shame for the crime they committed”.
Gangs vs TikTok
The film draws on extensive research on current prison conditions, including one scene where drones are used to deliver contraband over the institution’s wall and another in which subtitles are offered to decode the prisoners’ slang.
Walters said he has noticed some changes over his career in the real conditions of boys from working-class backgrounds such as his own.
His own children’s peers “frown upon people that are, like, selling drugs”.
“I think the glamour’s gone away from it now,” he said.
“If you can earn five grand a month from TikTok views… why the hell would you be out there?”
The creator of Adolesence, Jack Thorne, is one of the UK’s most prolific screenwriters and also returns to the theme of boys turning to violence in Lord of the Flies.
His first-ever TV adaptation of William Golding’s classic novel has its European premiere in the Berlin festival’s Special Series section.
Here too, boys are left to fend for themselves with disastrous consequences when a plane carrying young schoolchildren crash lands on a deserted tropical island, killing their adult companions.
Thorne’s take on the book, directed by Marc Munden, gives glimpses of the boys’ backstories to illuminate their descent into savagery.
