UK PREMIERE
The Big Bad Swim

Maltings cinema
Friday 21 19.30

USA, 2006, 93 min
Colour, DigiBeta
English
Sugg. cert. 15

dir: Ishai Setton
scr: Daniel Schechter
prod: Ishai Setton, Chandra Simon
dop: Josh Silfen
editor: Ian B. Wile
sound: Tammy Douglass
music: Chad Kelly
cast: Paget Brewster, Jeff Branson, Jess
Weixler, Ricky Ullman, Avi Setton, Kevin Porter Young, Todd Susman

production company: Setton Sun Productions
international sales: Echo Bridge Entertainment

Director’s profile:
Ishai Setton is a graduate from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His graduation film, The Butcher and the Housewife, an 18-minute romantic musical (with a Scorpions soundtrack), was screened at many international film festivals. He followed up with Dinerama 2000, a half-hour documentary about diners and their biggest fans, before producing the documentary Ocho Candelas, about a community of converted Jews in Veracruz, Mexico. The Big Bad Swim is his feature-length directorial debut. He is currently working on a screenplay that combines his real passions, from spring breaks to French toast to podiatry.

The Big Bad Swim follows a group of strangers with at least one thing in common: their fear of the water, which they have all chosen to confront at a swimming class run by Noah, a withdrawn instructor struggling to recover (psychologically as much as physically) from a career-destroying sporting injury. Amongst this disparate group of various ages, shapes and sizes, the film focuses primarily on Amy, a high-school teacher in the throes of a confidence-knocking divorce, Jordan, a blackjack dealer with a sideline as a stripper, and Noah himself.

The hesitant swimmers inevitably learn to overcome other hang-ups besides hydrophobia, as they force themselves and sometimes encourage one another to take the plunge. Yet the swimming classes never come across as a gimmick: when Noah, as part of a new teaching technique, introduces a ‘buddy’ system to instil a sense of one-to-one trust and reliance amongst his students, the obvious link between their helplessness in the water and out in the wider social sphere doesn’t grate, for these are characters whose loneliness and vulnerability ring true. Indeed, one of the many strengths of the film resides in the authenticity, both of characters and setting, it effortlessly establishes. It is also served by a fantastic cast and assured direction, which lift The Big Bad Swim way above most of its big-budget cousins.

Ishai Setton’s first feature film is an accomplished, engaging and well-written ensemble comedy that has been delighting festival audiences worldwide – proving, if evidence were needed, that American independent cinema is very much alive and well.

We are delighted that director Ishai Setton will be present to introduce the UK premiere of The Big Bad Swim on the opening night of the Festival.