County Lines (2019) [British Film Institute]

Director: Henry Blake
Writers: Henry Blake
Stars: Harris Dickinson, Ashley Madekwe, Chizzy Akudolu

Film Distributor: BFI (British Film Institute)

The term 'county lines' describes the practice of using children to traffic drugs from cities to coastal towns and rural areas, an under-reported fact of modern British life. Inspired by the stories he heard while mentoring kids at an East London pupil referral unit, writer-director Henry Blake's powerful feature debut boasts a compelling central performance by Conrad Khan as 14-year-old Tyler, whose mum Toni (Ashley Madekwe) is struggling to provide for him and his sister. Excluded from school, Tyler becomes a train-bound narcotics courier for local criminal Simon, played with a calm menace by Harris Dickinson. County Lines (2019) depicts the ensuing cycle of debt, deceit and violent exploitation with a quiet stylistic confidence that's all the more haunting for being so rigorously unsentimental.

Extras:
- Newly recorded audio commentary by director Henry Blake
- County Lines Q&A (2020, 40 mins): writer-director Henry Blake, and actors Conrad Khan and Ashley Madekwe in conversation with Variety and Observer critic Guy Lodge
- Anatomy of a Scene (2020, 3 mins): Henry Blake and Conrad Khan discuss one of the key scenes from the film. Recorded at BFI Southbank in 2020
- Gus & Son (2017, 13 mins): short film by Henry Blake exploring the difficult relationship between a father and his son
- County Lines (2017, 22 mins): Henry Blake’s short film which he would go on to develop into a feature
- Children of the City (1944, 31 mins): made for the Ministry of Information by Paul Rotha Productions this dramatised study of child delinquency in Scotland was directed by Budge Cooper and photographed by Wolfgang Suschitzky
- Scripts for County Lines (short) and Gus & Son (DVD only)
- Trailer
- Image gallery




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