Watch the first trailer for Game, starring Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson

“It’s a thriller set in 1993, in and around raves,” says Geoff Barrow of Game, the debut feature from Invada Films, the new offshoot of his record label Invada. “The film’s basically about drugs, poaching and survival.”

Having started out making imaginary soundtracks with Portishead, Barrow has progressed via composing actual film scores (for Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Civil War, among others) to now co-writing and producing a film of his own. His recently concluded final tour with Beak> coincided with a shift in priorities. “Music has started to fall away a bit,” he confesses. “I’ve really enjoyed doing the scores, because it’s not songs and you can be experimental. But I’m 53, I don’t want to settle down, and film has been a really huge shot in the arm for me. I’m like a kid again, learning about something new.”

The first image to be released from Game shows Marc Bessant’s tracksuited thief being hunted through woodland by The Poacher, played by Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. “I’ve done a fair few small roles in film and TV, but this was on another level,” Williamson tells Uncut. “The Poacher required a kind of naturalism that really speaks to me. There was something familiar about him, something I recognised from growing up in a small market town. But the challenge of building a fully fleshed-out character was something new – an experience I won’t forget.”

Game has been a step up, too, for Barrow and his collaborators, many of whom he’s known since childhood. Bessant is also from the town of Portishead and was an early member of the namesake band. He worked with Barrow on initial story ideas for Game, before Judge Dredd writer Rob Williams – a current Portishead resident – put together the final script, with input from another local. “One of my best mates, Leo, was a big character in Portishead, then Bristol,” explains Barrow. “He was a dealer and a poacher, and his special skills were very prominent in the ’90s rave scene. I talked to him about how things were done in his life, and that really informed Rob’s dialogue.”

Game was filmed for an ultra-low-budget £150,000 in an intense two-and-a-half-week shoot in September 2023. A woodland glamping site in Somerset’s Chew Valley owned by “a couple of guys who built the madder stuff at Glastonbury’s Arcadia” served as their main film set. After more than 20 years working on videos and visuals for Portishead and Beak>, John Minton stepped up as the film’s director. “I was just making the tea, really,” says Barrow, modestly. “There’s a roughness to the way John works. It’s a bit like the way I approach music. If the point’s strong enough and you get it across, then that should be enough. As the first feature I’ve produced, I wanted to make it as clear and uncomplicated as possible.”

As a result, he says, Game is “very British, very of the time”. Surely then, there was a temptation to deploy some of his own old music, originally conceived for films such as this? “Yeah, there’s a pub scene where, due to the time it’s set, a Portishead track would have been perfect, but it was too much for me. People would have thought, ‘Oh, wanker!’”

Invada Films takes up much of Barrow’s time now, with future plans already in motion. “This first film is very much based around what we know as middle-aged white blokes. I really wanna change that, and the next two films we’re working on are very different.”