The Drifters is Benjamin Bond’s directorial debut, and the story has a long personal history for him. He explains, “Ten years ago, even before the migration crisis dominated the political and media landscape in Europe, I was increasingly interested in ideas around freedom of movement,”he says.

“I had spent some time in Senegal working on the music concert ‘Africa Live’ for PBS. I met a lot of West African musicians and spoke to a lot of local people, there were so many young people leaving Africa on foot. That’s a big story now but it wasn’t then. I became interested in the disparity between where I could go and what I could do versus people who couldn’t even leave their countries.”  

 So a few years ago, he picked up the issue again from a different angle: 

“What if one of these adventurers had made it all the way to the UK? How would their life look and what if we could tell that story without them having any psychological baggage, they were just getting on with it. Would that be refreshing? And let’s say they fell in love with someone who was free to go where they wanted. That was the germ of The Drifters.”