Connor Clements

Feature film in development

Inspired by personal experience

The Part We Played

Writer and director: Connor Clements

Concept poster for The Part We Played. On black, a framed photograph shows two men from behind, side by side on a bench at the stern of a ferry on Lake Como, with mountains ahead. The young man wears a red cable-knit jumper. The older man, silver-haired, in a navy jumper and grey scarf, rests his arm along the bench behind him. Above the photograph, “Always be charming.” Below it, “The Part We Played. A film by Connor Clements.”
Concept poster

Northern Ireland, 2005. A closeted film student falls for a silver-haired concert pianist who seems to offer everything. The pianist is a fraud. The love is real.

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The story

James is twenty-two. He is a film student who hasn’t started his own film, a lifeguard on the early shift, and the quiet son in the downstairs room of a full family house. At night he drives up to a lay-by above a reservoir.

Then Sebastian, a silver-haired concert pianist, writes to him “from the other side of the world”. Within weeks James is in Milan, then on Lake Como, in the first love affair of his life that happens with the lights on. There are hotel lobbies, a jetty at dawn, a ferry, a film to make together and a way out.

Sebastian is not who he says he is, and the money is James’s own. But the truth does nothing to cure the love. When Sebastian disappears, James goes looking for him.

Origins

Connor began developing The Part We Played before he wrote James, the short that took him to Sundance in 2009 and won 23 awards. Its hero has the same name.

The approach

Remembered as feeling

The film is a memory, told the way feeling keeps it. Classical composition, real light and songs from the film's own world, in the tradition of Terence Davies and Aftersun. A full visual identity document is available to producers on request.

  • 4:3 throughout, with room for ceilings, doorways and the air above people.
  • No score. The songs come from the film’s own world.
  • Intimacy that is frank, never prettified and never punished.

Touchstones

The films it learns from, for their method rather than their look.

  • The Long Day Closes1992Terence Davies. Memory made from light, music and a camera that waits.
  • Aftersun2022Charlotte Wells. A holiday remembered, with the period’s own camcorder in the frame.
  • All of Us Strangers2023Andrew Haigh. The remembered home, lit by its own lamps.
  • A Perfect Spy1987BBC, from John le Carré. A con man’s charm, hotels and debts, through the eyes of the son who loved him.

Project

  • FormFeature drama
  • Running timeAbout 95 minutes
  • GenrePsychological romance
  • Format4:3 throughout. A camera test will compare 16mm, 35mm and digital
  • SettingNorthern Ireland, Milan, Lake Como, Dublin and London, winter 2005–06
  • ScreenplayDraft 8, November 2026, 95 pages
  • Visual identityPreproduction bible, Edition 1, November 2026
  • StatusSeeking a producer

Enquiries

Production and development enquiries are welcome. Connor is looking for a producer or production company to make the film with. The screenplay and the visual identity bible are available to producers and financiers on request.

  • The screenplay, Draft 8 (November 2026, 95 pages)
  • The visual identity, a 48-page preproduction bible (Edition 1, November 2026)
Request the screenplayhello (at) connorclements.tv

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