The Arbor
Contemporary Cinema
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1h 30m
Directed by Clio Barnard | 91 mins | 2010
Andrea Dunbar’s first play, "The Arbor"—a grimly autofictional work about a Yorkshire schoolgirl who falls pregnant, named for the council estate where she lived—premiered in London’s West End when she was just 18. By her untimely death at age 29, she’d produced two further plays, one film adaptation (1987’s "Rita, Sue and Bob Too"), and several children. Clio Barnard’s formally inventive docufiction looks back at the troubled playwright and her legacy.
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