Locarno International Film Festival
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
1971 Won Golden Leopard Best Second Work
Barney Platts-Mills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Platts-Mills
Private Road is a character-driven drama that sympathetically looks at the British middle classes and society's future with a degree of romanticism and scepticism. Ann Halpern (Susan Penhaligon) is from a suburban middle-class family in Esher. She works as a secretary for a publisher, where she comes into contact with aspiring young writer Peter Morrissey (Bruce Robinson) and the pair embarks on an affair – much to her parents chagrin. Peter prises her away from her family background and introduces Ann to the classless dropout world.
When Ann's father confronts Peter about his daughter's welfare, the pair decides to flee London to a remote Scottish farmhouse and live off the land whilst Peter writes his novel. Soon reality bites and Ann tires of the rural life, and the couple return to London with surprise news – Ann is pregnant. They begin to settle into a conservative domestic lifestyle; Anne resenting Peter's former hippie friends, and he taking a dull job in advertising. Meanwhile, Peter's junkie friend Stephen (Michael Feast) returns and challenges his former friend about the direction of his life.