Somers Town

Tommo, just turned sixteen and released from social care, runs away to London from a lonely, difficult life in the Midlands. Marek, a Polish immigrant, lives with his father, who drinks with his friends most evenings after working on a construction site. Marek is a keen photographer, quiet and sensitive - he is not comfortable in his father’s world.

Both struggle to make sense of their new world and a chance meeting in Somers Town, London, leads the two to form an unexpected partnership. Unknown to his father, Marek begins hiding Tommo in his flat and the two boys begin to earn money from an entrepreneurial and eccentric neighbour, Graham. Maria, the French waitress at their local café, already a photographic muse for Marek, now becomes more of an obsession for the two boys and the centre of all their attention.

When Maria suddenly leaves their lives, the two boys are bereft. Tommo and Marek seek escape through an evening of drunken abandon, but are discovered by Marek’s father, who throws Tommo out and all seems lost.

Shot in black and white in contemporary central London, Somers Town shows that in alienating urban environments and fractured family relationships, redemption is found through friendship.