X + Y director Morgan Matthews at Glasgow Film Festival

Video | 13 Mar 2015

Director Morgan Matthews discusses his understated drama X + Y at its Scottish premiere in Glasgow. The film centres on a young maths prodigy with autism, played by Hugo star Asa Butterfield, who has to come out of his shell when he's invited to try out for a place on the British team for the International Mathematical Olympiad. During the Q&A Matthews talks about the real life maths competition that gave him the idea for the film and how he went about making maths exciting on screen.

Speaking to the Glasgow Film Festival audience after X+Y after the screening, Matthews explained how making a documentary on the kids taking part in the Olympiad inspired his feature. “The producer I was working with at the time, he introduced me to the International Mathematical Olympiad. I went to meet the young people who were competing for a place on the British team at that time and I just thought that they were the most extraordinary group of people that I’d ever met... We followed them on their journey to the Olympiad – kids from about 100 different countries compete for medals – but along that way, the characters that I was filming experienced some quite profound things, and they became the inspiration for the film.”

Watch the full Q&A above. X + Y is released across the UK on 13 March by Koch Media.


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