Hard, Cracked the Wind
A young Cornish poet is compelled to buy an old writing case, curiously engraved with her own initials. Opening the case and reading the faint traces of a poem on the paper within calls the previous owner back from the shadows. Haunted into completing a poem from the words she finds, the poet becomes broken and finally succumbs to the endless cycle of creation and death as the case and the curse travel through time, owner to owner.
Year complete 2019
Run time 17 Minutes
Produced by Early Day Films
Watch a clip at the bottom of the page. Full version available on BFI Player.
For booking enquiries please contact Early Day Films
Directed by Mark Jenkin
Mark Jenkin is a filmmaker based in West Cornwall. His debut feature BAIT (“The real thing – hypnotically strange” Peter Bradshaw) premiered at the Berlinale 2019 and is now available to watch on BFI Player.
The film won 7 awards including a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.
He is an associate of Falmouth University where he lectures Film, is the author of the Silent Landscape Dancing Grain 13 Film Manifesto (promoting the aesthetic and logistic possibilities of handmade film) and is a member of The Newlyn Society of Artists.
Written by Adrian Bailey
Adrian Bailey is a screenwriter based in the South West of England. His debut feature, MOORING, is set to shoot in 2022 with director Johdi May, and has attached cast Charlotte Rampling and Niamh Algar.
Developed and produced by Early Day Films it has secured BFI Production Funds. Adrian received BFI Hub development support for psychological horror CANDLELIGHT.
Produced by Linn Waite and Kate Byers (Early Days Film)
Kate and Linn founded their production company Early Day Films together after co-producing BAFTA award-winning short film SEPTEMBER (2016). They brought together the finance for their debut feature BAIT, (Also with Mark Jenkin), to shoot exclusively in Cornwall.
Early Day Films is a recipient of a 2020 Vision Award. The company was selected as a Creative England CE50 company (The top 50 innovative, disruptive, creative companies in the UK) They are working with new and established writers and directors on an active slate of Feature film projects.
BAIT premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and premiered at 50+ Festivals worldwide. The film garnered 5-star reviews and recognition as an art-house breakout success. “One of the defining British films of the decade” Mark Kermode. It has been released internationally in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Poland.
In 2020 the team was awarded the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut alongside a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding British Film. Kate & Linn took home a BIFA BIFA for Breakthrough Producers in 2019.
After BAIT, they shot the short film Hard, Cracked The Wind, also with Mark and paired with genre writing from Adrian Bailey, working with producer Denzil Monk.
Produced by Denzil Monk
Ecosophically minded, creatively driven and rooted in Cornwall. Denzil is CEO of independent film production company BOSENA, where he is in post-production on BAFTA-winning writer/director Mark Jenkin’s next film ENYS MEN and developing a slate of features with backing from Film4, the BFI and Screen Cornwall. He is an academic at Falmouth University lecturing in film, engaged in research and innovation as Project Lead for A Case for Cornish Public Service Media, Lead Archive Research Strand for Re:voice and in Knowledge Exchange at the Sound/Image Cinema Lab.
Bosena Fylm
Festival Selections
- Encounters PREMIERE (International Competition) 2019
- BFI London Short Film Festival 2020
- Rotterdam (NOMINATED Voices Short) 2020
- Berlin – British Shorts 2020
- Indie Lisboa (NOMINATED Best Short Film) 2020
- Curzon Home Grown Shorts 2020
- Belfast Cinemagic 2020
- La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival (was NOMINATED Prix Nouvelles Vagues Acuitis), 2021
- Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de La Plata Festi-Freak, Argentina 2021
Behind the scenes photo by Thom Axon
Behind the scenes photo by Thom Axon
Writer Adrian Bailey and filmmaker Mark Jenkin could not have known that their film, made in 2019, would speak so acutely to the current crisis. But such is the great betrayal of writing in genre: affect is subject to extraneous conditions and, in this instance, horror exists in direct relation to heady contemporary fears. Review by Tara Judah in Ubiquarian for Obderhausen Film Festival.
More from Film Hub South West
Watershed is the Lead Film Hub Organisation for Film Hub South West, part of the BFI Film Audience Network.
Watershed is a Registered Charity No. 284188 and a Social Enterprise
Watershed, 1 Canons Road, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5TX
Film Hub South West &
BFI NETWORK South West
are part of the BFI Film Audience Network, supported by The National Lottery.
