45 YEARS

Synopsis

There is just one week until Kate Mercer’s forty-fifth wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. By the time the party is upon them, five days later, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate. Married for 45 years, without children, Kate and Geoff Mercer are poised to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a party, when Geoff receives a letter that shakes both of them. The letter, from Switzerland, lets him know that a body has been found: that of Katya, his girlfriend before Kate, who died falling into a fissure in a glacier when the couple were on a walking holiday in 1962. Geoff tells Kate that he was regarded as Katya’s next-of-kin, since they had been pretending to be married. Though Kate continues to prepare for the party, and the couple shares some romantic excitement about it, she becomes increasingly disturbed by Geoff’s preoccupation with Katya. Geoff begins smoking again; reminisces at length about his carefree time with his previous love; seeks out photographs of her in the attic; and complains bitterly about the way his contemporaries and ex-colleagues have aged. Under Kate’s questioning, he states that he would have married Katya had she lived. While Geoff is at a work lunch, Kate searches the attic and finds slides of Katya, which reveal that she was pregnant at the time of her death. As the celebrations grow closer, they delve further into their past, leaving their future in question.

Links / Reference

Andrew Haigh worked as an assistant editor on films such as GLADIATOR and BLACK HAWK DOWN before debuting as a writer/director with the short film OIL. In 2009 he directed his first feature-length film, GREEK PETE which debuted at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and won the Artistic Achievement Award at Outfest. His break-out film, WEEKEND, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival winning the Emerging Visions Audience Award before being released world-wide. It went on to win numerous awards including two British Independent Film Awards and an Evening Standard Award for Best Screenplay. Andrew also won the London Film Critics Award for Best Breakthrough Filmmaker. The film appeared on many ‘best of year’ lists including the New York Times and the film has since received a prestigious Criterion Collection release.