Autumn 1944. D-Day has failed. Britain has been invaded.
After the fall of Russia and the failure of the D-day landings, a German counter-attack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied.
As the country is gradually overrun by German forces, Sarah Lewis (Andrea Riseborough), a 26-year-old farmer’s wife, wakes up in her home in an isolated Welsh valley to find her husband Tom has disappeared. On the same morning the other women of the valley also discover their husbands have gone. Assuming that their men have joined the Resistance, the women of this tiny community pull together, taking on the running of the farms, and wait, desperate for news.
When a German patrol arrives in the valley, the purpose of its mission a mystery, the women are frightened but remain resilient, keeping the men at arm’s length. But when a harsh snowstorm heralds the sudden onset of winter the two groups are forced into co-operation. As a fragile mutual dependency develops, Sarah begins an acquaintance with the patrol’s commanding officer, Albrecht (Tom Wlaschiha) and, cut off from the surrounding war, the lines between collaboration, duty, occupation and survival become blurred.
As Albrecht's feelings for Sarah deepen, he confesses to her the secret of his mission. But with the chaos of the war pressing ever more closely in on them, the delicate harmony in the valley begins to falter, forcing the women and the soldiers to make decisions that will change their lives forever.
As the long winter draws to its end and the thaw sets in, the valley is once again open to the outside world. With resources running low, one of the the women, Maggie (Sharon Morgan), takes her husband’s yearling colt to the local agricultural show. But her appearance there attracts unexpected attention, and proves to be the catalyst that brings about a sudden and devastating tragedy.
Amit Gupta makes his directorial feature debut with RESISTANCE, based on Owen Sheers’ acclaimed novel and adapted for the screen by Gupta and Sheers. The film is produced by Richard Holmes (Waking Ned, Eden Lake) and Amanda Faber. Set in 1944, RESISTANCE is an alternative history of the second world war, about an imagined German invasion of Britain following the failed D-Day Landings.
BAFTA-nominated Andrea Riseborough (Brighton Rock, Made In Dagenham) stars as Sarah Lewis, the wife of a farmer who is missing, believed to have gone underground into the British resistance movement. Tom Wlaschiha (Enemy At The Gates, Valkyrie, Brideshead Revisited) stars as Wolfram Albrecht, the commander of the German platoon which comes to the remote valley. Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, The Damned United) stars as Atkins, an undercover officer recruiting for the resistance, with Iwan Rheon (Misfits) as his operative, George Thomas.
