{ "id": "epzgfbtw11", "slug": "another-time-another-place", "title": "Another Time, Another Place", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s", "label": "Drama films 1980s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1980-1985", "label": "Released 1980 to 1985", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1980-1985" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000: Drama films 1980s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s", "label": "Drama films 1980s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Another Time, Another Place is Michael Radford's 1983 British debut feature, a Film on Four adaptation of Jessie Kesson's novel in which a Scottish farmer's wife (Phyllis Logan) has an affair with an Italian POW (Giovanni Mauriello); distinct from the 1958 Sean Connery film of the same title.", "snippet": "Another Time, Another Place is Michael Radford's 1983 British debut feature, a Film on Four adaptation of Jessie Kesson's novel in which a Scottish farmer's wife (Phyllis Logan) has an affair with an Italian POW (Giovanni Mauriello); distinct from the 1958 Sean Connery film of the same title.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1980-1985", "markdown": "# Another Time, Another Place\n\n**Another Time, Another Place** is a 1983 British drama film directed and written by Michael Radford, adapted from Jessie Kesson's novel of the same title, in which a young Scottish farmer's wife begins an affair with an Italian prisoner of war assigned to work on her farm during the Second World War.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/dc284d04-43c0-55d9-974c-9ae76645662c/another-time-another-place) • [2](https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/26-torino-film-festival/film/another-time%2C-another-place/8482/) It was Radford's debut narrative feature, made as a \"Film on Four\" for Channel 4 with funding from Rediffusion Films and the Scottish Arts Council, and it stars [Phyllis Logan](https://www.edgepedia.org/phyllis-logan) as Janie and Giovanni Mauriello as Luigi.[3](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/a/another_time_another_place_1983.html) • [4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Michael Radford, his debut narrative feature[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/dc284d04-43c0-55d9-974c-9ae76645662c/another-time-another-place) • [3](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/a/another_time_another_place_1983.html) |\n| Source | The novel of the same title by Jessie Kesson, who drew on her years as a farmer's wife in North East Scotland from 1939 to 1951[2](https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/26-torino-film-festival/film/another-time%2C-another-place/8482/) • [5](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/) |\n| Story | Three Italian prisoners of war are sent to work on farms in an isolated Scottish community; Janie, the farmer's wife, starts an affair with Luigi[4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542) • [6](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place) |\n| Principal cast | Phyllis Logan (Janie), Giovanni Mauriello (Luigi), Denise Coffey (Meg), Tom Watson (Finlay), Gianluca Favilla (Umberto), Claudio Rosini (Paolo), Gregor Fisher (Beel)[7](https://www.flickchart.com/movie/another-time-another-place-1983/credits) |\n| Key crew | Producer Simon Perry; cinematography Roger Deakins; editing Tom Priestley; music John McLeod[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/dc284d04-43c0-55d9-974c-9ae76645662c/another-time-another-place) • [6](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place) |\n| Release | Cannes premiere 23 May 1983; UK release 15 July 1983; US release 11 May 1984; transmitted on Channel 4 on 10 November 1983[8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036606/releaseinfo/) • [4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542) |\n| Running time | 102 minutes per the BFI; other listings give 100, 101, or 105 minutes[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/dc284d04-43c0-55d9-974c-9ae76645662c/another-time-another-place) • [9](https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/another-time-another-place) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and setting\n\nThe film is set in an isolated farming community in the north of Scotland during the war. Three Italian prisoners of war arrive to help work the land; ignored by the locals, worried about their families at home, and miserable in the alien climate, they are eventually shown compassion by a cattleman's wife, Janie.[4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542) Janie, a young woman married to an older farmer, feels a stranger in the region and in her marriage; she is fascinated by the handsome Paolo but starts an affair with the sad Luigi, and the relationship ends in bitterness and loneliness without any hope of a shared future.[6](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place)\n\nThe sources disagree on the story's year: the Glasgow TFTS archive and the Cologne festival synopsis place the action in 1944, while [TV Guide](https://www.edgepedia.org/tv-guide) and the film blog itp Global Film place it in 1943.[4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542) • [6](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place) • [10](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/another-time-another-place/cast/2000116646/) • [5](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/) The setting itself is consistently identified as the Black Isle, just north of [Inverness](https://www.edgepedia.org/inverness), in northeast Scotland.[11](https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/5622449/ThesisdraftFinalEditCorrectedBoundFinal2.pdf) • [5](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/)\n\n## Production and funding\n\nThe film was produced by Simon Perry through Umbrella Films, in cooperation with Rediffusion Films, Channel 4 [Television](https://www.edgepedia.org/television), and the Scottish Arts Council.[6](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place) Channel 4 Productions had begun making its own films in 1982 for the newly launched UK television channel, and films made under its Film on Four strand were often intended for cinema release; this film was one of them, with the television transmission following on 10 November 1983.[5](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/) • [4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542)\n\n[Channel 4](https://www.edgepedia.org/channel-4) was the major financier across a portfolio of five Scottish features produced between 1982 and 1984, of which this film was one, alongside *Hero*, *Scotch Myths*, *Living Apart Together*, and *Every Picture Tells a Story*.[12](https://theses.gla.ac.uk/6666/1/2006MurrayPhD.pdf) David Rose, Channel 4's first commissioning editor for fiction, counted the film as a personal favorite because, in his words, \"it did what we were trying to do in Birmingham\" in creating an authentic view of a particular community.[11](https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/5622449/ThesisdraftFinalEditCorrectedBoundFinal2.pdf)\n\n## Release\n\nThe film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 23 May 1983, opened in the United Kingdom on 15 July 1983, screened at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy the same day, and reached the United States on 11 May 1984.[8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036606/releaseinfo/) In Australia it was classified M on 1 September 1983, with a listed duration of 100 minutes on 35mm, the applicant being A.Z. Associated Film Distributors.[9](https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/another-time-another-place) It was later made available on BFI Player in the UK.[5](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/)\n\n## Reception and interpretation\n\nContemporary and later critics have emphasized the film's landscape and pacing. Time Out described it as Radford's debut feature concerned with desire and desperation, passion and imprisonment, with a \"classically simple metaphor of liberation and constraint\" in the relationship between the three Italian prisoners and a young woman stifling in a barren environment of loveless labor.[13](https://www.timeout.com/movies/another-time-another-place-1) The film critic Adrian Martin called it a slow, elemental, stylized rendering of the relationship between Janie and the three prisoners, unfolding somewhere between [Terrence Malick](https://www.edgepedia.org/terrence-malick)'s *Days of Heaven* and Terence Davies' *Distant Voices, Still Lives*.[3](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/a/another_time_another_place_1983.html) A contemporary NME review praised the cinematography's rendering of the seasons but found the ending frustrating.[14](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/New-Musical-Express/1983/NME-1983-07-09.pdf)\n\nIn scholarly writing on British war films, Geoff Eley, a historian of modern Germany and Britain at the University of Michigan, reads the film as staging loneliness, longing, and desire in a remote rural Scottish landscape where the war impinges mainly through the assignment of the three Italian prisoners to a local farm; the Italians' difference moves the farmer's much younger wife to fantasies of escape, making the story an allegory of imprisonment and liberation for which wartime circumstances provide the setting.[15](https://culturahistorica.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eley-finding.pdf) Film scholars have also placed the film in a Scottish tradition of isolation and existential loneliness, alongside later films such as *Comfort and Joy*, *Ratcatcher*, and *Red Road*.[16](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17411548.2024.2420454)\n\n## Place in Radford's career\n\nRadford followed this debut with *Nineteen Eighty-Four* (1984) and *Il Postino* (1994); his 1996 Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay for *Il Postino* are cited by the Glasgow archive as establishing him among the notable British directors of his generation.[4](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542) The film also gave its cinematographer, [Roger Deakins](https://www.edgepedia.org/roger-deakins), an early feature credit; he went on to a prominent career in cinematography.[6](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place) Phyllis Logan, in her early screen role as Janie, later became widely known through television, including *Downton Abbey* (2010 to 2015).[3](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/a/another_time_another_place_1983.html) • [5](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/)\n\n## Other films of the same title\n\nThe title has been used more than once. A 1958 American drama of the same name, directed by Lewis Allen, stars [Sean Connery](https://www.edgepedia.org/sean-connery) as a wartime BBC newsman torn between two women, with [Lana Turner](https://www.edgepedia.org/lana-turner) and [Glynis Johns](https://www.edgepedia.org/glynis-johns).[17](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/another-time-another-place) A separate 1989 American film of the title was directed by Clyde Ware and stars Martin Sheen.[18](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160001/fullcredits/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Another Time, Another Place (1983), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/dc284d04-43c0-55d9-974c-9ae76645662c/another-time-another-place)\n2. [Another Time, Another Place, 26th Torino Film Festival film card](https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/26-torino-film-festival/film/another-time%2C-another-place/8482/)\n3. [Adrian Martin, review of Another Time, Another Place (1983)](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/a/another_time_another_place_1983.html)\n4. [TFTS Archive record display, Theatre, Film and Television Studies, University of Glasgow](https://tftsarchive.gla.ac.uk/vod/maindisplay/?coid=5&mid=2542)\n5. [Roy Stafford, Another Time, Another Place (UK 1983), itp Global Film](https://itpworld.online/2020/10/26/another-time-another-place-uk-1983/)\n6. [Another Time, Another Place, Film Festival Cologne](https://filmfestival.cologne/en/filme/another-time-another-place)\n7. [Another Time, Another Place (1983), Cast & Crew, Flickchart](https://www.flickchart.com/movie/another-time-another-place-1983/credits)\n8. [Another Time, Another Place (1983), Release info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036606/releaseinfo/)\n9. [ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE, Australian Classification](https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/another-time-another-place)\n10. [Another Time, Another Place, Full Cast & Crew, TV Guide](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/another-time-another-place/cast/2000116646/)\n11. [Laura Mayne, Channel 4 and British Film: An Assessment of Industrial and Cultural Impact, 1982-1998, PhD thesis, University of Portsmouth](https://pure.port.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/5622449/ThesisdraftFinalEditCorrectedBoundFinal2.pdf)\n12. [Jonathan Murray, PhD thesis on Scottish film culture, University of Glasgow](https://theses.gla.ac.uk/6666/1/2006MurrayPhD.pdf)\n13. [Another Time, Another Place review, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/another-time-another-place-1)\n14. [New Musical Express, 9 July 1983, Silver Screen review](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/New-Musical-Express/1983/NME-1983-07-09.pdf)\n15. [Geoff Eley, Finding the People's War: Film, British Collective Memory, and World War II, The American Historical Review 106 (2001)](https://culturahistorica.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eley-finding.pdf)\n16. [Isolated figures in a remote Scottish Landscape: place and identity in the films of Scott Graham, Studies in European Cinema](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17411548.2024.2420454)\n17. [Another Time, Another Place (1958), Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/another-time-another-place)\n18. [Another Time, Another Place (1989), Full cast & crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160001/fullcredits/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1980 to 1985*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Another Time, Another Place\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Another Time, Another Place](https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place](https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Another Time, Another Place\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/another-time-another-place. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Another Time, Another Place is Michael Radford's 1983 British debut feature, a Film on Four adaptation of Jessie Kesson's novel in which a Scottish farmer's wife has an affair with an Italian POW; distinct from the 1958 Sean Connery film of the same title." }