Making waves at this year's Sundance Film Festival was God's Own Country, a small but perfectly formed British indie from debut feature director Francis Lee, telling the story of a rural romance that dare not speak its name in the rolling West Yorkshire countryside. We've got our hands on the first trailer – take a look below.
It's been described – a little lazily, you might argue – as "Brokeback Mountain set in Yorkshire". But it's a comparison that Lee, speaking to Empire for the current issue, appreciates. " I love Brokeback Mountain," Lee says. "The comparison feels like an honour, but they are very different. Brokeback is of a particular time and place – its two central characters can't be together because of society's attitudes. In God's Own Country, it's all to do with the central character's inability to open up."
That central character is Johnny Saxby (Josh O'Connor), a young farmer in West Yorkshire, who is joined on the farm by Romanian worker Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) when Johnny's father suffers a stroke. As they work together, early hostility gives way to something physical.
After that early buzz from Sundance and Berlin, God's Own Country has been picking up positive notices everywhere, and arrives in cinemas from September 1. Pick up a copy of the new issue of Empire, on sale now, to hear more from director Francis Lee.