Project Detail

Distant Bridges

Synopsis

It is the turn of the century in a sleepy North country market town. Two young boys Arthur and Wilfred, dream of adventure - of going to war to fight for King and Country. Though still at school and under age for Kitchener's army, this does not stop them enlisting. As they board the troop train for the war front in their newly pressed army uniforms all family feuds are forgotten. Yet nothing could have prepared them for the hell that waited in the trenches, in the mud, on the barbed wire, in the squalor of shattered limbs that once were brave men.

On recuperative leave home, Arthur falls deeply in love with Amy his girlfriend - and makes every hour count. However, back at the front, Arthur and Will are no longer boys but men grown old beyond their time - scarred by the slaughter of life. Into this hopelessness comes brief news of happiness - Arthur is to be a father. Now the real battle is on to stay alive for at last there is hope.

But sadly fate has a different course to run, for Arthur is riddled with machine gun fire while attempting to save the life of a wounded soldier. For Will this is a dreadful end to a wonderful friendship - for the generals just another statistic of the Great World War. But life must go on...and Will on returning home sees the future in the eyes of Arthur's child - the hopes, the dreams of a new generation.

Details

Year: 1998
Type of project: Features
Running time: 95 mins
Format: Super 16mm Fuji
Director: Dusty Rhodes
Producer: Richard Rhodes, John West
Director of Photography: Tony Serpini
Principal cast: Richard Harbutt, Laura Patch, David East, Rebecca Ray-Palmer, David Harrison, Mark Bint and Helen Stanley
Executive Screen Writer: Dusty Rhodes