Reeling in the years: how the past comes back to haunt us

When Andrew Haigh's Weekend – his second film as writer and director – premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in 2011, it played to what he describes as "a half-empty cinema". Happily, the audience who did turn up for this lovely romance turned out to be the right people.

The film, which was shot in Nottingham for less than £100,000, was quickly championed by everyone from Roger Ebert to Lena Dunham. It would go on to scoop up awards at festivals all over the world.

"I edited that film by myself in my bedroom," says Haigh. "I didn't think anyone would watch it. But I was over doing press in New York, sitting with my boyfriend in a cafe and I opened the New York Times and it was the lead review that week. Moneyball with Brad Pitt was down the page. And I said: 'How has this happened?'"

It certainly didn't happen overnight. Haigh decided to get into film-making as a young history graduate. He worked in various jobs – assistant for Ishmail Merchant of Merchant Ivory fame, trainee assistant director on Notting Hill – and was rejected by the National Film and Television School before finding work as an assistant editor on films such as Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and Mister Lonely.

World view

“I remember realising during the interview for the National Film and Television School that I wasn’t ready to be a director,” he says. “Obviously. That’s why they rejected me. I had watched a lot of films and was thinking that I would make films like Antonioni. But you can’t. Only Antonioni can. When I watch films, I’m watching for a world view. It doesn’t matter if I don’t quite understand that world view. I hadn’t quite worked out who I was back then.”

Today, as we meet in London, the charming, unassuming Yorkshireman is jetting between promotional duties for his much lauded third feature, 45 Years, preproduction on his fourth film and duties on HBO's Looking.

What a difference four years make. When 45 Years played at the Berlin Film Festival last February, it received a standing ovation from the 1,700 capacity crowd and won acting prizes for both its leads, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. Suffice it to say, Haigh is no longer just an emerging "name to watch": he's the main event.

“It was an incredible feeling,” he says. “Really quite emotional.”

Quietly devastating

The new film concerns a long-married couple (Rampling and Courtenay), whose relationship unravels following the discovery of the body of the husband’s long-lost first love. It is a quietly devastating drama that lingers long after the final credits have rolled.

“Ordinary lives and everyday struggles and relationships fascinate me,” says Haigh, who adapted the film from a short story by David Constantine. “I love seeing those on film.”

Haigh, in common with fellow British director Joanna Hogg, is one of the few cinematic talents that dare to venture into the lives of that ill-defined majority known as the “middle classes”.

“I find class fascinating,” he says. “And I think a lot of film-makers almost feel obliged to make films either about the working class or the upper class. They’re almost embarrassed to make stories about the middle class. But that overlooks most of us. And while the struggles are very different, they’re still relevant. Everybody has sharp edges.”

Haigh's low-key approach to drama was keenly felt in Looking, the show he produced and occasionally wrote and directed for HBO. The comedy-drama, which chronicled the lives of three gay men in San Francisco, proved a little too subtle for mass consumption and will not be renewed for a third season.

“I have to take responsibility,” he says. “Because while some people really liked the show, for others it wasn’t what they thought the show should be. The sad thing is there aren’t that many shows with gay themes around.

“I always knew the audience would be small. Because there’s so much television around its very hard to persuade straight people to go and watch a show about gays. And then it’s also quite hard to persuade the gay people to watch that show, which was very low-key. So it was a niche of a niche of a niche. But I was never going to make something fabulous.”

Baffled

The film 45 Years could hardly be described as a stylistic or thematic departure for Haigh and yet the film's focus on a heterosexual couple has left some viewers baffled.

“When I was talking about the film to people they’d say, ‘Oh, so the person in the past was a man? No? He’s not gay? So who is gay?’ Nobody is gay. People like to pigeonhole. But I can still feel all of the emotions of those characters and I’m gay and they’re straight. This is not about turning your back on being gay. Being gay is obviously a very important part of my life. But it’s not the only part of my life. And I think sometimes it can overshadow other aspects of your work.”