Abe (Ako) is a promising black amateur, boxer who falls in love with Jess (Joel) while working, at a scrap yard. And now comes a Liverpool-set tale of love which crosses not only class but race as well. trying to find a little romance among the Russian fleet. Ten years ago, in Letter To Brezhnev, it was Margi Clarke and co. Scouse youth seems to like nothing better than copping off in a manner guaranteed to cause controversy, outrage and, in all likelihood, tragedy to boot. Whatever the case, on the silver screen at least. Or perhaps Liverpool kids just couldn't give a monkey's what their elders, and betters think. EMPIRE MAGAZINE by Clark Collis MAYBE IT'S SOMETHING THEY PUT IN THE MERSEY. Whether many will watch Dark Summer is more open to question. Despite the difficulties put in front of your average patient viewer, who may well wonder why the film is so painfully slow without looking under its surface, Teton is very clearly a film-maker to watch. Only Augustus Pablo's reggae soundtrack animates it. It eschews narrative drive in favour of a slowly deepening sense of the way things often are. The film accomplishes its sad tale almost as if spying on reality at various odd moments. It Is almost as if fate has conspired against this simple, nice pair of innocents in a guilty world. And so gradually does their relationship.
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At the beginning of the film, we see him beaten for an area amateur championship and towards the end his first professional fight goes the wrong way too. But he goes to live with the girl, gets her pregnant and attempts to start a new life with her. Dad is not best pleased and the lad is sacked. It tells the story of a young black amateur boxer (Steve Ako) who, while working as a mechanic on a scrap metal site, meets and takes up with the white daughter of the boss (Joeline Garner Joel). THE GUARDIAN by Derek Malcolm Charles Teton's Dark Summer, which he produced and wrote as well as directed, is a first feature shot with a spare but eloquent style, mostly in Liverpool where the city's Economics Initiative Unit helped with finance.