An off-beat comedy starring Skelmanthorpe-born Jodie Whittaker has premiered in New York and will open in the UK in June.
Adult Life Skills, in which Jodie plays a woman who makes videos using her thumbs as actors, won the Nora Ephron Prize for best female director at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
The film, which had the working title How to Live Yours, saw scenes filmed in Almondbury and at Scammonden Water Sailing Club at Scammonden Dam.
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The film is a debut production by Sheffield-based writer and director Rachel Tunnard.
Jodie plays central character Anna who is approaching 30 and finds her life stuck in a rut.
She is living like a hermit in a shed at the bottom of her mum’s garden in the Lake District wondering why the Suffragettes ever bothered.
A week before her birthday Anna’s mum gives her an ultimatum to quit the shed, get a haircut, stop dressing like a homeless lady – and find a man.
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Anna’s life was influenced by the death of her twin brother and the film tells how she replicates the lost relationship with her sibling by making videos using her thumbs as actors.
The film – billed as the “off-beat comedy of the summer” – is based on the BAFTA and BIFA-nominated short Emotional Fusebox.
Also starring actor and comedian Brett Goldstein, who appeared in the film SuperBob, it will open in the UK on June 24.
The official description for the film says: “This is a story about confronting the things we are most scared of – a story that explores the universal themes of being lost and finding yourself, making peace with who you are, and regaining self-confidence and dignity.
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“It is basically the same themes as Rocky if you think about it. But with thumbs. And a cowboy. And no boxing.”
Former Shelley High School student Jodie found her biggest success to date as Beth Latimer in ITV detective drama Broadchurch.
She is returning in the third series of the show and is expected to start filming very shortly.
