‘They’re as lost and inauthentic as us’: the Oscar winner who made a Farage satire – and released it on WeTransfer

S ome film-makers have unrealistic expectations for their work; Aneil Karia is not one of them. “I’m not deluded enough to think that it’s going to bring down the government,” he says of his new film, Vote Gavin Lyle – but you never know, it just might. A funny, clever, superbly acted, small-but-perfectly-formed satire, Vote Gavin Lyle stars Jack Lowden as a wannabe Reform-style parliamentary candidate for the fictional middle-England constituency of Fletcham and Wold. At just 16 minutes long, it absolutely skewers the far-right mindset; not the minority-bashing, flag-hoisting street thugs, but the cannier, well-spoken Farageists who dominate the tendency’s leadership. Without wanting to give away the film’s final flourish, it’s fair to say that there’s an element of empathy, even sympathy for its central character. Karia says: “I don’t think it’s interesting or useful to look at these people – far-right politicians, councillors, prospective candidates, whoever – and just say what nasty bastards they are. I think what strikes me about them is they’re just as vulnerable and scared as the rest of us. “I feel like we’ve slipped into the kind of culture where everything becomes a kind of intellectual ping pong, people relentlessly yelling at each other. And without being pretentious, as a film-maker I thought I wanted to get under that and observe the humanity beneath it all.” Karia and Riz Ahmed with their Oscars for The Long Goodbye in 2022. …