About the project

The Arbor
Clio Barnard
Screened at UK cinemas from 22 October 2010
DVD and Blu-Ray release: 14 March 2011

BFI 'Made in Britain' screenings will run from 2 to 5 April 2012, with a Q & A with Clio Barnard following the 6.10pm screening on 4 April

Clio Barnard's film tells the powerful true story of the playwright Andrea Dunbar, who died tragically in 1990 at the age of 29, and her daughter Lorraine. Revisiting the Buttershaw Estate where Dunbar grew up, Barnard recorded audio interviews with members of the Dunbar family and residents from the Buttershaw Estate over a period of two years...

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Watch a scene from the film

Max Stafford-Clark on Andrea Dunbar

"In 1980 there was one outstanding play: The Arbor. Written boldly in green biro on pages ripped from a school exercise book, it told the story of a Bradford schoolgirl who became pregnant on the night she lost her virginity. A family argument was depicted with brutal authenticity, and the ﬁnal scene was heartbreakingly affecting and bleak. The principal character, just called 'Girl', had lost her baby and by accident meets the boy who had made her pregnant. The innocence of the mutual recriminations revealed how young the protagonists really were."

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Stills from The Arbor

Press coverage

Lyn Gardner: Born to Write and Die

"Andrea Dunbar wrote about what she knew. What she knew was the Buttershaw estate in Bradford. Buttershaw is a Saxon name, a pretty name. When the Buttershaw estate was built in the late forties the people of Bradford used to take bus rides up the hill to wonder at its glories. By the time Andrea moved there with her seven brothers and sisters in 1971, it had become a dumping ground for problem families. Braffenon Arbor, the road where the family settled, and after which Andrea named her first play, was obviously christened by an idealist."

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Video: Camila Batmanghelidjh

About Clio Barnard