I've Been Trying to Tell You

Saint Etienne present a beautiful and enveloping nostalgia trip through 1990s Britain.

Do you look back on the optimism of the 1997-2001 era as a lost golden age, or do you see it as a period of naïvety, delusion and folly? There’s a lot of nostalgia for the nineties at the moment, especially from people too young to remember it who see the decade as a simpler, pre-internet time. Modern nostalgia often draws on corporate American-90s mall culture, but what about British culture? With I’ve Been Trying To Tell You – made to accompany the Saint Etienne album of the same name – director Alasdair McLellan evokes the era through the fog of memory. The resulting film, shot in locations from Grangemouth to Portmeirion to Southampton, is both beautiful and enveloping.

Director

Alasdair McLellan

Writers

Alasdair McLellan, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs

Released

September 10, 2021

Language

English