With his debut feature Better Things, writer-director Duane Hopkins explores the less idyllic realties of growing up in the Cotswolds. He furrowed the same territory for two award-winning short films, Field (2001) and Love Me Or Leave Me (2003), where teenagers grappled with extreme emotions of love and hate. Hopkins subsequently developed these ideas to create what he hopes is a "challenging and honest interpretation of rural England", a landscape which he feels has been largely ignored in British cinema.

Since Hopkins has first-hand experience of growing up in the Cotswolds, he bases many of the characters on people from his own childhood. "I understand the rhythm and pace of their lives," he says, "and the atmosphere of the area." In fact setting the right mood is something that Hopkins puts great emphasis on – and he certainly isn't aiming for kitchen sink realism. "Visually, we will create a film that truly evokes rural England," he says. "To achieve this we will combine the narrative with a very lyrical, fluid and illustrative form of cinematography... observing the action through a lucid, hypnotic and dreamlike rhythm and pace."

Beyond the headline-grabbing issues of drug abuse and sexual promiscuity among teenagers, Hopkins also asks deeper questions about the effect of the rural environment on a still-forming psyche. Even so, he gives short shrift to accusations of being a social realist filmmaker: "What I find interesting is the individual's need for security and safety – their quest for emotional stability and happiness."

We visited the set of Better Things whilst the film was shooting in a comprehensive school in daventry. Watch the video to see the Better Things Duane and producer Samm Haillay are hoping for.

Better Things will be released in the UK by Soda Pictures on January 23rd 2009.

Stella Papamichael | Published 25 January 07

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