Interview: Islands’ Director Jan-Ole Gerster & Star Sam Riley On Their Sun-Soaked Noir

To the many tourists on the holiday island of Fuerteventura, the all-inclusive resort hotel in Jan-Ole Gerster’s Islands is all about luxurious relaxation. But its tennis coach, Tom (Sam Riley), gives us a glimpse of the reality: he sweeps the courts at the end of every session, tidies away squillions of yellow balls and spends his days in gentle rallies with holidaymakers just playing for fun. Glamorous it isn’t.

It’s the starting point for a film which was inspired by Gerster’s own trip to the island a few years ago – and the tennis coach he met at his hotel. The director and Riley talked to us about the origins of the story, why it has a distinctly Hitchcockian flavour and the practicalities of shooting a film during the holiday season in a real hotel full of guests. Riley likens the experience to being in The Truman Show and recalls being asked for tennis lessons by holidaymakers who mistook him for the actual coach.

The film itself is best described as a “hot noir”, an enigmatic thriller mixed with romance under the scorching sun of the Canary Islands. Tom is asked by Anne (Stacy Martin), a new guest at the hotel, to give her young son a few tennis lessons, and he’s instantly smitten. But, as he gets closer to both her and her husband Dave (Jack Farthing), he realises their marriage is rocky to say the least. When Dave suddenly disappears withouta  trace, the police investigation takes an uncomfortably close interest in Anne’s relationship with Tom.

READ OUR REVIEW OF THE FILM HERE

You can watch the full interview below:

Islands is in UK cinemas from September 12^th.

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About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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