Like Father (2001)

Amber Films

The second drama in Amber’s coalfield trilogy explores the lives of a grandfather, father and son as they come to terms with the post-pit closure landscape of East Durham.

The Scar (1997), the first in the trilogy, explored the lives of women. Looking at male experience, this film draws on the story of Joe Armstrong, who himself plays the character Joe Elliott. Armstrong, an ex-miner and colliery bandsman, wrote the brass band suite that features in the film and was, in the aftermath of pit closure, working as a trumpet player, club singer, music teacher and club act agency. The development of the film and its locations created the initial context for Side Gallery’s Coalfield Stories commissions. Shooting Magpies, the third film in the trilogy, looked at the post-industrial generation and the impacts of heroin in the colliery villages of East Durham.

Amber Films, 95 mins, 2001

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