EIFF2014: Greyhawk

A blind army veteran loses his guide dog and only friend, Quincy, on a tough estate in this slight but extremely well put together debut feature from Matt and Guy Pitt. A charismatic Alec Newman plays the stricken vet Mal, stubborn and steadfast in his hunt for Quincy and the young team he believes to have taken him. Zoe Telford and Jack Shepherd offer a helping hand as a nervous single mum and the pub bore respectively.

The filmmakers do some really imaginative work in rendering Mal’s isolation; sound design, framing and use of focus gives us, the audience, a taste of our protagonist's alienation from his surroundings. And credit must also go to them for never painting Mal as anything other than a bit of a bastard, albeit a tragic one; it would have been all too easy to have this surly, obnoxious character perform a dubious volte-face when confronted with potential tragedy. Greyhawk might be long for its narrative, even at barely 90 minutes, but there’s enough savvy to mark out the Pitts as ones to watch.