Florida Premiere / USA / 2025 / English / 150 min / Drama, Classic, Period Drama
Director: Hardeep Giani; Writer: Eugene O’Neill, Hardeep Giani; Producers: Hardeep Giani, Matthew Pitts-Tucker; Editors: Tracy Joss, Michael Steel; Director of Photography: David Symmons; Sound Recordist: Jayson Farey; Costume Design: Louie Whitemore; Colourist: Katherine Jamieson; Music Composer: Nick Norton-Smith; Production Design: Arif Mahmood; Dubbing and Sound Mixer: Dom Purdie.
Key Cast: Vincent Andriano, Charlotte Asprey, Alan Turkington, Rebecca Lee, Josie Kidd, Charlie Roe, Kate Copeland, Richard Emerson – Gould, Martin Laer, Alex Francis, Nesba Crenshaw, Cat Mckeever.
This is the first-ever film adaptation of The First Man – an early and rare story from the pen of Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, Eugene O’Neill.
This psychological romantic drama set in 1920s Connecticut delves into themes of obsession, grief and betrayal.
World renowned anthropologist Curtis is consumed by grief over his young daughters’ deaths. He finds solace in immersing himself in preparations for his upcoming expedition to Asia, where he aims to unravel the mystery of “The First Man.” However, he must confront an undercurrent of family conflict as he battles against his relatives’ unsettling suspicions that his wife Martha is carrying his best friend Bigelow’s child.
100 years after it was first published, Pulitzer and Nobel literature award winning writer Eugene O’Neill’s 1920’s story – ‘The First Man’ has been lovingly crafted as a feature film by a team of UK based filmmakers led by auteur director Hardeep Giani – and this is his very first Feature film.
SPECIAL GUESTS: Hardeep Giani
Director and Producer Hardeep Giani explain his vision:
‘Eugene O’Neill’s incredible script was a pleasure to make into a feature film. What we wanted to do was to make this independent film for a modern audience – to produce a story examining the conflict of love in an environment of social and family prejudice, and how a bereavement can inflict psychosis in a grieving father.’
Director Biography – Hardeep Giani
Hardeep Giani is a renowned Director and Producer in Film and Television. He has worked for the BBC, Channel 4, Talkback, RDF and Silver River television companies. Having studied film directing in New York at the NYFA and Motion Picture Pro – he has also gained qualifications from NFTS, London Film School, Raindance and Dov-Simens Producers course. His Short films Rose, Mary and Time, If You Go Away and The Years of Laughter and Forgetting have won numerous awards at film festivals. His long form documentary ‘F**K It, It’s Over’ also won many awards at film festivals and he directed the TV documentary ‘Megan and Harry: A Revolutionary Romance’. His First Feature ‘Eugene O’Neill’s – The First Man’ is due for release in 2025.
Director Statement
I am always looking to tell stories in film and be creative on a very low budget. I love to promote Indie Film making, and champion its philosophy.