Picturehouse Entertainment Announce the Release of SUMMER IN THE FOREST with Q+A Tour starting this June 23

An extraordinary new documentary film, Summer in the Forest, is arriving in UK cinemas on 23rd June. It is a story about our search for love and true friendship. And in a remarkable reversal of conventional wisdom it shows that the answers we crave can be found among some of our most marginalised people. The film is original, creative and fresh, and it touches all our lives.

Director Randall Wright’s follow-up to his critically acclaimed and award winning film Hockney showcases compelling story-telling at its best. The film spurns more orthodox documentary making methods and under Randall's deft and generous touch human self-importance crumbles to reveal our better instincts. Assumptions are shattered as we are welcomed to places where the usual rules don’t apply.

Randall says “Since we started making the film something extraordinary has happened. Almost everyone we meet now tells us they have a cousin, a sibling, an uncle or an aunt with learning difficulties. Because of the film, they feel it’s ok to tell us and talk about it”. The statistics say most British families have a close connection with intellectual disability. This is a film is about the humanity and love that this can bring.

Summer in the Forest really is a rare and magical offering: a film that could change your life. At once profound and refreshingly free of ‘worthiness’, it is a glimpse into a more graceful world - and one of the must-see documentaries of the year.

About Summer in the Forest
In the UK the film is launching at Picturehouse Central in London on June 23, before embarking on a Q&A screening tour across the UK that includes leading indie cinemas (see website for details). It will be available for download from June 23rd.

More than 1.4 million people in the UK have a learning disability. Of these: 65% would like to work, but only 7% have a job, 33% are lonely and 25% don’t have a ‘best friend’.

The film follows Philippe, Michel, Andre and Patrick, who were once locked away and forgotten in asylums. In the 1960s a young philosopher, Jean Vanier, took a stand and secured their release. He changed forever the way we understand intellectual disability and went on to set up some 150 L’Arche communities worldwide. Places where people with and without learning disabilities share life together.