Project Detail

Thorntree

Name: Thorntree
Director: Isaac Knights-Washbourn
Genre: Scottish
Released: 2025
Duration: 87 min

Synopsis

At the end of a secluded Edinburgh street is a four-story building housing formerly homeless men, many of whom have struggled with addiction. Unlike most organisations, this place provides permanent housing where the men can drink inside their flats and live as they choose. On the top floor, Billy and Ronnie's friendship falters due to jealousy. Stevie battles vodka withdrawals before rehab, while Gerry and Donald lead opposing lives on the first floor - Donald relapses as Gerry celebrates two years of sobriety.
Starting at the surface level of alcoholism in an observational style, the men then challenge this label, revealing the human stories beneath. Billy and Ronnie's violence, Stevie’s rehab, Donald’s guilt, and Gerry’s redemption. Confronting these deeper emotional bonds, the men offer a profound exploration of their lives beyond the label of "alcoholic". The intertwined lives of these men reveal the complexity of addiction and how they are trying to move through it by unravelling past traumas.

Details

Year: 2025
Type of project: Features
Running time: 87 min
Director: Isaac Knights-Washbourn 1st Feature
Producer: Nadja Lapcevic
Executive Producer: Sinead Kirwan
Editor: Will Hewitt
Director of Photography: Antonio Pozojevi
Composer: Adrian Leung

Genre

Scottish

Production Status

Post-production

Production Company

Varda Pictures

Nadja Lapcevic
1f2 4 Appin Terrace
EH14 1NN
Edinburgh

Page updates

This page was last updated on 29th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

JOY OF JOYS is a short documentary about the recording sessions for War Child Records' HELP(2) at Abbey Road Studios, directed by Jonathan Glazer and devised by Mica Levi and Glazer. Children in London film themselves and the musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn, Cameron Winter, Fontaines DC and Pulp. While children in Gaza Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen film themselves and their surroundings. The documentary interweaves these layers across continents and backgrounds to show a universal innocence and the joy of childhood itself. Glazer and Levi describe the film as being “by children, for children”. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Music War

Smiling man facing camera with a group of people in nun costumes and Outrage placards behind

Queer Edward II

Director: Theo Rollason

Year: 2026

Spring 1991: queer life is under renewed attack in Britain, and filmmaker Derek Jarman is adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Drawing on extraordinary never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, QUEER EDWARD 11 is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Art / Artists Biography LGBTQIA+

Young man with dark hair and black jacket stands with his eyes closed in a field of common reed.

Between Us and the World

Director: Wallace Minchong Li

Year: 2026

European archival footage from the 1950s documents the life of indigenous, nomadic Sahrawi children and youth in Western Sahara / Morocco. Seventy years later, local young people from Laayoune (El Aaiún) revisit locations that may have appeared in the footage. From ocean to desert to oasis, under trembling starlight, they share their thoughts on life, dreams, and utopia as they search for an uncertain upstream. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Climate / Environment Experimental Human Rights