Danish international sales and aggregation company LevelK has landed on award-winning Portuguese director Marco Martins’ thought-provoking TV series Great Yarmouth: The Temporary, set to premiere in San Sebasti next month World premiere in the main competition of the Ann Film Festival.

popular type A “powerful study of intense grief,” Martin’s debut, “Alice,” won Prix Regards Jeune at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005.

The story takes place three months before Brexit, when hundreds of migrants poured into the British village of Great Yarmouth in search of work in the area’s turkey processing plants. Once there, Tânia greets them with the authority of a housewife, working as an innkeeper, accountant and repairman. Her conscience is heavy when she is forced to deceive them, and she dreams of a brighter, seemingly distant future, transforming abandoned hotels into modern retreats for elderly tourists.

Tânia’s struggle unfolds through hazy footage, adding a raw and disturbing aesthetic to the film, reflecting the impossible nature of her escaping a relentless cycle after confronting a grim reality, as a perpetrator ascending the ladder. A woman by giving up her moral compass.

Great Yarmouth captures the exploitative nature of unbridled corporate greed, where a vulnerable workforce is promised a better life, only to end up with squalid and poor working conditions.

The film was produced by Filipa Reis for Portugal’s Uma Pedra no Sapato (“Azul”), co-produced by Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl for the UK’s Elation Pictures (“Edmond”), and Yohann Cornu for France’s Damned Films (“Gabriel And The Mountain”) and François D’Artemare for the Paris-based Les Films de l’Aprés-Midi (“The Ground Floor”).

Additional financial support was provided by Portugal (ICA, RTP), France (CNC, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Charente-Maritime), the UK (BFI’s Covid Completion Fund) and Eurimages.

Martins combed Great Yarmouth’s Portuguese community for years before sitting down with writer Ricardo Adolphe (“Saint George”) to write the script, drawing gritty narratives from first-hand accounts.

“It’s been five years since I first started working on the project, interviewing over 100 Portuguese immigrants living and working in Great Yarmouth, and I’ve seen it move from theatre to film, through the pandemic and Brexit, and Appearing on the other side for a screening in San Sebastian. I’m excited to be working with the amazing team at LevelK,” Martins said in a statement.

Create gritty, believable portraits with renowned actors Beatriz Batarda (“Yvone Kane”), Kris Hitchen (“Sorry, We’ve Missed You”) and “Alice” star Nuno Lopes.

This September, “Great Yarmouth” will compete for San Sebastian’s Concha de Oro, featuring Christophe Honoré’s coming-of-age films “Winter Boy” and “Pornomelancolía,” the Argentine director taking a serious look at the lives of sex influencers Explore Manuel Abromović.