Darkstar 'The Days Burn Blue' by Lucy Luscombe

Cat Velez - 12th Nov 2015

Shot in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire over two days during the summer, Lucy Luscombe's evocative video for Darkstar's The Days Burn Blue is a series of intimate portraits of happy, carefree local youth - some of whom are close to meeting the harsh realities of adulthood face-to-face.

"I was interested in what a coming-of-age might feel like to a kid in a town outside of London during the 'age of austerity' – a surreal transition from the expectation of childhood, to the exhilaration of emerging adulthood, to the quiet realisation that fulfilling your dreams in modern Britain is perhaps an impossibility," says the director, who moved to Huddersfield during pre-production, getting to know the place and the community before shooting the film - the third in a series of commissions by Warp Records for Channel 4’s Random Acts.  

Luscombe, who has now joined the directors' roster at Caviar in London, continues: "The talent, promise and character I encountered amongst the youth in Huddersfield was overwhelming. Really bright kids with big dreams and little infrastructure to realise them. It makes you the wonder what genius is slipping through the net."