CLEFT LIP
“The narrative is smartly updated and the script snaps along with caustic tightness”. (Tim Coleman, Total Film)
“This curio offers up resonant moments, not least because the scenario it posits feels distinctly plausible”. (Hannah McGill, Sight & Sound)
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN FERTILITY BECOMES A COMMODITY IN A FRACTURED SOCIETY?
Oedipus reborn. Sophocles’ classic of classics adapted for the 21st Century by Erik Knudsen into a contemporary tragedy about the unravelling of the most fundamental of relationships in society; that between a father, a mother and a child. Cleft Lip is set in the context of a world where donor eggs and sperm are freely traded as increasing numbers of people are having to resort to fertility treatment as a consequence of social changes, individual decisions and biological imperatives.
Unbeknown to 25 year old Campbell, his older wife, Jaz, donated a fertilised egg to a donor when she was younger and tragedy unfolds as they both come to discover, over a critical three day period, the frightening truth that fate and circumstance have brought them together again.
Fiction, 84 minutes, 2019
STARRING
Reece Douglas | Miranda Benjamin | Keith French
PRODUCTION TEAM
Writer, Director and Editing Erik Knudsen
Line Producer Janet Knudsen
Cinematography Mark Duggan | Sound Recordings Karen Lauke
Production Design Meriel Pym
Sound Design | Billy Glew | Special Effects Stuart Samuels
Photography Ceyiz Fairclough | Shemin Balachandran Nair | Kenny Brown
UK Theatrical Release Jonny Tull
Director’s Statement
“Classically epic and archetypal themes often tend to be adapted into narrative film as either relatively faithful historical adaptations which mimic the epic nature of their originals, or as contemporary or futuristic adaptations recreating an equivalent epic spectacle. They can therefore feel mythical and remote. In poetry and literature, the epic may be as a consequence of a metaphoric turn of phrase, while the literal adaptation or translation of this often results in audiovisual bonanza of spectacle. Few have done in cinema what James Joyce did with The Odyssey’s leading character, Ulysses, in literature; translating the essence of an archetypal classic story into a context that reflects the immediate and intimate everyday circumstances of the author and his audience. In bringing a poverty that imbeds epic themes into the small scale intimacy of everyday contemporary life, Joyce used heritage and history to advance the narrative language of the literary novel.
Back to the future, so to speak.
With Cleft Lip I aspired to achieve similar relevance through the creation of an innovative contemporary adaptation of one of the classic stories of European civilization. Identity is a crucial element of how we create meaning, purpose and responsibility in our lives and nowhere is this more important than in having a sense of our personal history and lineage. Fertility and the social context we have created around it has changed greatly in the past decades, creating serious challenges for a growing number of people who are uncertain of their true heritage. In some European countries, it is increasingly possible that both egg and sperm donations may be anonymously supplied to those seeking to have children and as fertility becomes commodified there are growing numbers of people who may be mingling with siblings, for example, that they do not know are their siblings.
The discovery of the link between the themes of a 2,350 year old play and this was a Eureka moment for me: I found the story of Oedipus could merge with these themes and challenges in contemporary life, whilst still reflecting on the unchanging and powerful relationship between a child and their parents.”