Take an exclusive first look at Shola Amoo’s The… | Little White Lies

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Take an exclu­sive first look at Shola Amoo’s The Last Tree

16 Jul 2019

Words by Hannah Strong

Two people, a young man and an older woman, sitting together and appearing to be in conversation.
Two people, a young man and an older woman, sitting together and appearing to be in conversation.
The offi­cial trail­er for the British writer/director’s semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal dra­ma is here.

In his elec­tri­fy­ing debut, A Mov­ing Image, Shola Amoo exam­ined the impact of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion on his native Brix­ton, explor­ing the poten­tial of art to be a polit­i­cal force. Two years lat­er, the writer/​director is back with his first nar­ra­tive fea­ture, which charts a British-Niger­ian boy’s dif­fi­cult com­ing of age.

The Last Tree received glow­ing reviews at Sun­dance, and the first trail­er, which you can view exclu­sive­ly below, offers a glimpse of a life caught between two con­trast­ing worlds.

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We are intro­duced to Femi, who is uproot­ed from an idyl­lic coun­try­side home to an estate in South Lon­don. The trail­er hints at the con­flict between Femi (played as a teenag­er by Sam Adewun­mi) and his bio­log­i­cal moth­er, his mis­trust of author­i­ty fig­ures, and his des­per­ate long­ing to ulti­mate­ly find his place in the world.

With lush visu­als and a sweep­ing string score, there is a strong emo­tion­al pull to the film, which is par­tial­ly based on Amoo’s own child­hood. You might want to pack a box of tis­sues when you head to the cin­e­ma to see it.

The Last Tree is released in cin­e­mas on 27 September.

A man standing in a grassy field, set against a blue sky and sunset. The poster advertises the film "The Last Tree" directed by Shola Amoo.

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