Beats - Music Box Selects - Brian Welsh

BEATS
Music Box Selects
(Vinegar Syndrome Partner Label)

Scotland, 1994. John and Spanner are best mates with a shared love for electronic dance music, and polar opposites destined for wildly different futures. Straight-laced Johnno (Cristian Ortega) is leaving town for a middle-class life with his mother and cop step-dad Robert, while Spanner (Lorn Macdonald) is facing a dead-end with his unhinged criminal brother Fido. When they learn of an unsanctioned underground rave, they decide to break out for one last crazy night together. Set against the backdrop of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which banned gatherings featuring music with “repetitive beats” across the UK, BEATS is a universal story of friendship, rebellion, and the irresistible power of music.

Directed by Brian Welsh, BEATS operates as social-realist coming-of-age cinema embedded in UK rave culture historiography, structurally anchored in late-1990s youth policy backlash against electronic music gatherings and their criminalization under public order legislation.

• Region Free Blu-ray
• New Feature Commentary with director Brian Welsh and writer Kieran Hurley
• Scotland 1994: The Making of BEATS
• Evolution of a Poster Gallery
• Photo Gallery
• Theatrical trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

directed by: Brian Welsh
starring: Cristian Ortega, Lorn Macdonald, Laura Fraser, Brian Ferguson
2019 / 102 min / 1.85:1 / English 5.1 DTS-HD MA