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MANIFF2023 winner Wait For Me: UK&I theatrical release details confirmed

Keith Farrell

Full details of the UK and Ireland theatrical release of Manchester International Film Festival award winner Wait For Me in June have been announced.

The film, which picked up the festival’s Best Director award for Keith Farrell of Manchester’s Old Hall Films, was picked up for theatrical distribution by Munro Film in the wake of its MANIFF2023 debut.

The main UK and Ireland release on June 2 will be preceded by two Q&A screenings at the Parkway Cinema in Cleethorpes, where much of the film was shot, on May 25 and Belfast’s Queen’s Film Theatre on May 27. The film will then open in a number of cinemas across the North of England, Ireland, and Bristol from June 2.

Wait For Me, Farrell’s debut feature, centres on two outsiders who become entangled in the criminal underground and attempt to replace their lost families by starting new lives elsewhere.

Wait For Me trailer


The cast includes Karen Hassan, Sean McGinley, Elva Trill, Neil Bell, Rebecca Atkinson, and Theo Ogundipe. Bernard O’Toole wrote the script.

Margot Douglas, who served as producer for Old Hall Films, told Screen Daily at the time of Munro’s acquisition: “As a Northern company we feel strongly about representation up here and can’t wait for more people to see it in the cinema environment it was made for.”

Outside of its recent feature endeavours, Old Hall Films has produced award-winning short films and TV drama series for ZDF Studios, RTÉ, Screen Ireland and Corus Entertainment since it was founded in 2018 with the initial intention of producing just one short.

Wait For Me was the second MANIFF winner to be picked up for theatrical release following this year’s festival. The Best UK Feature winner, Jane Gull’s Love Without Walls, was snapped up by Bulldog Film Distribution and will release on June 9.

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