Watch the trailer below for an upcoming feature film titled Higher Chicago, which stars black British thespian Colin Salmon, and is directed by Alfons Adetuyi, his feature film directorial debut; though Adetuyi is no stranger to the cinema, as he’s worked primarily as a producer and director of TV and documentaries in Canada.

I really like the look and feel of what I see and hear here; though I’m unfamiliar with Adetuyi’s work, I’ve seen Salmon in a number of films, and he’s always a presence on screen, even in the “lesser” titles he’s acted in.

Karen LeBlanc, Fulvio Cecere, Rob De Leeuw, John Robinson, and Sebastian Pigott round out the starring cast.

So what’s the film about?

Its synopsis, courtesy of the film’s website, reads:

Set in 1975, HIGH CHICAGO is a gritty drama about Sam, a 42-year-old husband and father of two, in the grip of a serious gambling addiction. Living on the edge of poverty in a northern mining town, Sam has been stoking the same blast furnace for ten years. When Sam loses his job; instead of admitting his failure to his wife Ruth, he chooses instead to chase the foolhardy dream of traveling to Africa to open a drive-in theater, a scheme hatched years earlier in the navy. Sam is equally desperate to support his family and keep his personal dream alive, almost destroying both with his compulsive gambling. In the vein of Death Of A Salesman, The Bicycle Thief and The Gambler.

The film is listed as “completed” so I expect we’ll be hearing more about it in coming months – likely film festival screenings, etc. We’ll be reaching out to the filmmaker for an interview.

Watch the trailer below (thanks Emmanuel for the tip):