# Enys Men

Enys Men (Cornish for 'Stone Island') is a 2022 British experimental psychological folk horror film shot, composed, written and directed by Mark Jenkin. Shot on 16 mm film, it stars Mary Woodvine, Edward Rowe, Flo Crowe and John Woodvine.
The film was shot during the COVID-19 lockdown, and the crew prioritised creating a small carbon footprint during production. Enys Men premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

## Plot

In 1973 on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast, a wildlife volunteer's daily observations of a rare flower turn into a metaphysical journey that forces her as well as the viewer to question what is real and what is nightmare.
The only feature that suggests a continuous flow of time (though highly sped up) is the appearance of a fruticose lichen growing on the flowers over three days and simultaneously on the protagonist's body. She has a nebulous relationship with a sinister standing stone, a teenage girl who may be her daughter or younger self, a mysterious preacher who may be her father, a group of older women, and another group of young girls, a collection of ghostly miners who haunt the island's tunnels, and her sole human contact, a fisherman with whom she may have once been in love.

## Cast

* Mary Woodvine as The Volunteer
* Edward Rowe as The Boatman
* Flo Crowe as The Girl
* John Woodvine as The Preacher
* Joe Gray as The Miner
* Loveday Twomlow as The Baby
* Callum Mitchell as Sound Engineer

## Production

The film was shot in 21 days during the COVID-19 lockdown, which necessitated a smaller crew than was planned. The crew set out for production to have a low carbon footprint, producing only 4.55 tonnes of CO$_2$ (compared with around 3000 tonnes for a typical film) which was offset.

## Release

Enys Men premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. In Bodmin, the film's opening night sold out within hours, and the film was a box office success for cinemas across Cornwall.
Neon has purchased the North American distribution rights.

### Promotion

The film was promoted bilingually, with posters being produced in both English and Cornish. It was thought to be the first instance of a distributed feature film having Cornish posters.

### Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 94 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "If its story's mysteries are ultimately less compelling than they might seem, Enys Men's retro aesthetic and intriguingly abstract visuals make this a chilly treat for horror fans." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Mark Kermode, reviewing for The Guardian, gave the film five stars calling it "a richly authentic portrait of Cornwall" and saying Woodvine's performance was "quietly mesmerising". Adam Scovell, writing for BBC Culture, said that the film was "a perfect, anti-romantic expression of Cornish eeriness".
In an article for Far Out, Calum Russell wrote that Enys Men feels "like the spiritual continuation of Bait", Jenkin's previous film, and "more like an innovative art installation than a piece of narrative fiction".

### Accolades

| Year | Association | Category | Nominee | Result |
| 2022 | Cannes Film Festival | Directors' Fortnight | Mark Jenkin | Nominated |
| 2022 | Athens International Film Festival | Best Picture | Mark Jenkin | Nominated |
| 2022 | BFI London Film Festival | Best Film | Mark Jenkin | 66th place |
| 2022 | Sitges Film Festival | Best Motion Picture | Mark Jenkin | Nominated |
| 2023 | British Independent Film Awards | Best Sound | Mark Jenkin | Won |
| 2023 | The Guardian's Best Films | The Best Film (June) | Mark Jenkin | Won |
| 2023 | IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival | Best Feature Film | Mark Jenkin | Nominated |

### Home media

Enys Men was released on dual format Blu-ray and DVD on 8 May 2023 via BFI distribution.