Writers: Nick Love
Director: Ashley Walters
A leading contender in the First Feature Competition at the BFI London Film Festival, Ashley Walters’ directorial debut, Animol is an astonishing insight into loyalty, hierarchy and the unyielding pressure placed on boys in a young offenders’ institute. Notable for its beautiful colouration and cinematography, Walters finds art and meaning in the framing of this story, and while never undermining the bleakness of the prison system, gives his characters a rich inner life and, amidst the violence, a sensitivity in which they are just achingly to be cared for.
On remand for a crime he may not have committed, Troy is initially silent as he enters the prison system, uncertain of the rules and clearly fearful of what’s to come. Set over just two months, within hours Troy is swept up in the everyday jostling for position, seeking protection from one of the established elders in return for a few favours. On the way in Troy meets Krystiyan, a Polish thief caught sniffing glue in a library and a gentle bond develops.
The visual impression of Walters’ movie is like nothing you’ve ever seen in a prison film; cells bathed in yellow / orange light, bright teals and plenty of richness. So while this is the same, drab, uniform version of a UK jail familiar at least from popular culture depictions, Walters lends it a level of meaning that is quite new. And in doing so adds to the layers of humanity that shapes the lives and experiences of the prisoners. Walters is never sentimental about the drugs, the thrumming violence and the scrums of masculine posturing that are exhaustingly constant, but beneath the surface he sees men who just need hope, something or someone to give them another way.
Combined with Nick Love’s script, this is a sparring drama built on character, with Troy as the viewers’ proxy. Although badged as a murderer as far as his fellow inmates are concerned, he may yet be innocent but in what feels like many months rather than just 60-odds days (counted on screen), this is also a story of corruption, taking the perhaps not so innocent new intake and putting them through a new system of living where aggression, control and competition force them into a game of survival. And Troy, along with friend Krystiyan must do whatever they can to prove they can take it, even if they have to turn on each other.
But riven through this is a sensitive relationship between the two men whose care for one another is surprising to Troy. Amidst all the pressure, the development of a true friendship is very meaningful especially when they are prepared to make sacrifices to protect each other, sometimes at significant personal cost. Starring Tut Nyuot as the gentle Troy who develops a talent for crime alongside Vladyslav Baliuk as Krystiyan who endures a great deal for the man he met only weeks before, alongside a cameo from Stephen Graham as an inspirational education office, Animol takes the tropes of the prison drama and adds beauty and humanity. An exciting debut from Walters.
Animol is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
