Demonstrating a sensibility that is evocative of classic European arthouse cinema such as Tarkovsky’s Stalker, The Survivalist is a spare, tense thriller set in a post-apocalyptic Ireland where organised society has collapsed.

A paranoid loner (Martin McCann) lives in a cabin in the woods, scratching a subsistence level living from the land and carefully managing even the smallest resource. His paranoia is justified when a pair of starving women, mother and daughter, find his forest hideaway and upset the precarious equilibrium of his day to day existence…

Like survival itself The Survivalist is lean, pared to the bone. Dialogue is spare and functional, sound and vision are spartan and naturalistic and, while superb, the acting is low key. In spite (or perhaps because) of this, less is definitely more – the film has a profound emotional impact and lingers in the memory long after watching. Life is about much more than survival after all and without fundamental human qualities – love, trust, compassion – is it even worth living?

Winner of The Douglas Hickox Award (Début Director) at the recent British Independent Film Awards, and now nominated for the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Début by a British Writer, Director or Producer, The Survivalist marks director Stephen Fingleton as a significant new voice in cinema.

"Fingleton writes and directs with gusto and flair" ★★★★ The Guardian

"an impressive, unsettling début" ★★★★ Observer

"This ambiguous, effective post-apocalyptic drama marks the début of an impressive new directing talent" ★★★★ Time Out