Berlin: Sasha Nathwani On His Competition Title ‘Last Swim,’ Transitioning From Directing A-List Commercials To Narrative Features & The Struggles Of Indie UK Filmmaking
23.02.2024 - 16:21
/ deadline.com
With his debut feature Last Swim, an ambitious and quietly radical portrait of young life in London, Sasha Nathwani has achieved one of the most difficult tasks for a new filmmaker: cutting through with a festival audience.
Last Swim debuted last week at the Berlin Film Festival, where it opened the festival’s Generation sidebar. The pic has been one of the more buzzy titles here on the ground in the German capital and is considered a frontrunner to pick up some gold when awards are announced this weekend.
Set over a sweltering exam results day in London, the pic follows Ziba, a promising British-Iranian teen, as she leads her friends on an eventful journey across the city. Despite the celebratory atmosphere, Ziba struggles to retain her characteristic optimism as she finds herself battling the fears and secrets she’s been hiding from her friends. As day turns to night, Ziba has no choice but to confront her reality, changing the course of her life and the future she has been planning.
“We were crafting the scripts in the midst of the pandemic when young people all over the world were having their seminal years snatched away. So that was one of the conceits of the script,” Nathwani told Deadline. “How would you reclaim your youth if you could?”
Nathwanin co-wrote the screenplay with Helen Simmons (Hoard), who also produced alongside Campbell Beaton, Nisha Mullea, Bert Hamelinck, Sorcha Shepherd, and James Isilay. Exec producers are Ruby Walden, Kelly Peck, Jess Ozeri, Max Fisher, and Liam Johnson. Paris-based Indie Sales is handling world rights.
With a successful bow at Berlin, Nathwani and Last Swim join a recent flurry of debut British indie features like Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex, Charlotte Wells’s