EXCLUSIVE: Charlotte Mickie and her team will commence international sales in Toronto where Hope Dickson Leach’s feature directorial debut will receive its world premiere in Discovery.

The Levelling

The Levelling stars Ellie Kendrick, Jack Holden, Joe Blakemore and David Troughton and centres on a trainee veterinarian who returns to the farm where she grew up after hearing that her brother has died in an apparent suicide. 

Finding the family home in ruins following recent floods that devastated the Somerset area in the UK, she is forced to confront her difficult father about the farm, the livestock and details surrounding her brother’s death.

As the funeral approaches, her discoveries send her on an emotional journey and a reckoning ­with the land, her family and herself. Rachel Robey of Wellington Films produced.

Creative England, the BFI, BBC Films and Oldgarth Media financed the project through iFeatures, Creative England’s talent development and low budget feature film initiative to support emerging film-makers on their first full feature.

The Levelling appealed to us because it is so extraordinarily authentic, capturing the profound pathos engendered by familial misunderstanding and barriers,” said Mongrel International president Mickie.

“As viewers we just pray that father and daughter will have another chance, a new start.

“I also loved all the details of farm life. The movie really gives you a visceral sense of the demands a farm makes on knowledge, experience, physical stamina and above all, emotion. Farmers are stewards of life – this movie never lets you forget that.”

“I’m delighted that the Toronto International Film Festival have invited us to present the world premiere of our film The Levelling in their exciting Discovery section,” said Leach.

“For the film to have its first audience filled with global cineastes is an exhilarating prospect. I look forward to every moment of my time there.”

Robey added: “I’m extremely proud to be presenting The Levelling at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival in what promises to be a wonderful edition of the festival.  

“Hope Dickson Leach is an important new voice in cinema and I’m excited to be sharing her magnetic debut feature film with an international audience.

“I’m also thrilled to be once again working with Charlotte Mickie and her team to represent The Levelling internationally; we could not have a better fit for the movie and I know that we are in the safest of hands.”