Doomed Britain movie wins critical acclaim

A film about a nightmarish Britain in which mankind is dying out and the country is torn apart by mass immigration has screened to critical acclaim in Venice.

Children of Men, based on the novel by PD James, stars Clive Owen and 19-year-old newcomer Clare-Hope Ashitey.

Sir Michael Caine also appears as an ageing, dope-smoking hippie in the film, directed by Alfonso Cuaron.

It is set in 2027, when the human race has been rendered infertile. The last baby was born in 2009.

The discovery that an African refugee (Ashitey) is pregnant offers hope for mankind, and Owen’s character must guide her to safety.

Ashitey was chosen for the role after a nationwide search for a young actress.

She made her big screen debut earlier this year in Rwandan drama Shooting Dogs.

The teenager recently finished her A-levels at the Latymer School in Edmonton, north London, but put her plans to study social anthropology and law at university on hold after she landed a part in the film.

“It was quite daunting at times just being on set with so many people who are great at what they do. I can tell you it’s been a steep learning curve for me,” Ashitey said at a press conference for the film in Venice.

“The physical aspect of being pregnant and giving birth in the film was really hard to master, having never done it myself. I had a lot of help from midwives and from women on set who had given birth, and there were a lot of really gross movies that I had to watch.”

Owen’s character is a former political activist who becomes a reluctant hero.

The 41-year-old actor said: “He’s the opposite of a conventional lead character. The most difficult thing was to play a character who, given the choice, wouldn’t have been in this movie at all.

“I’m very instinctive when I choose my roles and usually the number one thing has to be the director. I’m a huge fan of Alfonso. He’s a hugely original, super-talented, one-off director.”

In the film, the imminent end of the human race has led to global anarchy.

Britain is one of the only countries to retain some semblance of law and order, and as a result an influx of immigrants arrives on its shores.

But they find themselves rounded up and caged by the militaristic “Department of Homeland Security“, then transported to camps where some are abused in scenes reminiscent of Guantanamo.

Cuaron, director of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, conducted his own research before filming began and found immigration to be the most pressing issue of the moment.

The desperate immigrants in the film come not just from Africa and Eastern European, but from previously wealthy Western countries.

Cuaron said: “I don’t think this is a bleak vision of the future, I think it’s a realistic vision of the present.

“We live a comfortable life, but there is a big part of humanity that does not. We forget that we live in this bubble.

“It’s not just ethnic minorities who are disenfranchised in the film, but Dutch, Scandinavian – it’s people trying to get to a world with resources. It’s bringing the universe a little bit closer because we feel this is something that happens to other people.

“Making the pregnant girl an African immigrant was a conscious decision. Hope doesn’t necessarily come in the form of the most glamorous thing on Planet earth, but in a marginalised African woman.”

The film was shot mostly in London with the Tate Modern, Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square and St James’s Park used as locations.

American scriptwriter Timothy J Sexton said: “We had the ideas for this film in a little apartment in London in the middle of winter, where we imagined the whole story.

“I think that London in the middle of winter is a great place to imagine the end of the world. It’s cold and miserable and the sun never comes out.”