Kindle Entertainment, the award-winning and BAFTA nominated independent production company, is proud to announce the film entitled AWOL as the latest addition to their ever-expanding slate. Directed by Marc Munden, the BAFTA award-winning director (The Mark of Cain, The Devil’s Whore) and written by award-winning Lin Coghlan (The Miracle, Kingfisher Blue, First Communion Day – Winner of the Dennis Potter Play of the Year) – the 90-minute feature was commissioned by BBC Learning and is also slated for a theatrical release in 2010.

With powerful performances from a strong cast including newcomer Aaron Taylor and Thomas Sangster (Bright Star, Nowhere Boy, Love Actually), AWOL is the tough but tender story of three brothers, H, 18, unemployed and into petty crime, Casey, an innocent, warm hearted 15-year-old with learning difficulties and 10-month-old Severino. The film starts when social services split the family up after the death of their mother. Casey takes the only action open to him; he ‘snatches’ his baby brother and goes on the run in search of his estranged father in Inverness, forcing H to join him by posting H’s stash of illegally gained cash to a PO box there. Casey thinks that if he finds his dad everything will be alright. The police and social services think that Casey is a criminal. H thinks Casey is off his head but Casey thinks they should be a family.

AWOL Director, Marc Munden, comments; “AWOL is a 21st century road movie mixing the magic realism of The Night of the Hunter with the social realism of the Dardenne brothers. It feels like an American indie movie but it’s defiantly and authentically home-grown – South London born and bred, and exploring the epic landscape of Great Britain. It’s a film that can only have been made now – when adults are children and children are expected to be adults, when adults are no longer able to take on the burden of parenting, so infantilized have they become, so dependent on escaping through drugs and drink. And children have to take on that burden instead.”

Produced by BAFTA-winner Sara Feilden (Off-Side) with Kindle Entertainment’s Anne Brogan & Melanie Stokes (International Emmy-winning Dustbin Baby) as executive producers, this British film was shot in various locations across the UK.

BBC Learning is also supporting the drama with a new innovative online element. At the point where the 90 minute film ends, the audience will be encouraged to go online and find out what might have happened had the ending been different. Viewers are invited to make challenging moral choices for H at key moments in his life as he attempts to look after Casey and Severino. The result of an individual viewer’s choice is played out in real time in a continuously moving interactive drama. This technology, developed by the BBC has never been used before and offers a truly engaging and immersive viewing experience.

Anne Brogan, Co-founder of Kindle Entertainment and Executive Producer, comments; “AWOL is a film that gives a voice and humanity to those young people in Britain today who are often characterised as thugs or hoodies. Lin Coghlan has written characters that are funny, warm and memorable and Marc Munden has brought them alive with our young cast with an intensity and power that will make them linger in the heart and imagination.”

Liz Cleaver, Controller BBC Learning, adds; “The drama is an excellent way of engaging young people into some very big issues, and the additional interactive opportunities that this project will be pioneering will offer them a real opportunity to engage and learn from the content.”