Director Duncan Roy's AKA is a first feature that impresses in every way. Based on a true story and set on the cusp of Margaret Thatcher's rise to power, this daringly constructed film reveals an England riven by class conflicts, ambition and greed, and tells the story of a young man determined to rise above it all.

Hunky Matthew Leitch (Band of Brothers) plays Dean, a working-class boy who dreams of finding more than life with his abusive father and waitress mother can offer. When his dad finally kicks him out of the house, Dean turns to the only kind person he knows — an older gay man he met in a park. After Dean strips down and shows his stuff, his new benefactor invites him to stay as long as he likes, and Dean's adventures in a world he has fantasized about for years begin.

Soon Dean is having lunch with an upper-crust gallery owner who derides a waitress's accent as something that should be "treatable on the national health” — never imagining that her handsome companion is actually the waitress's son. What follows is a tale of rent boys and snobs, drugs and booze, high times and lowdown despair. To tell his story, Roy (whose short films include Clancy’s Kitchen and Jackson: My Life…Your Fault) uses a dazzling split-screen technique that keeps as many as three different images in play at any given time, making AKA a visual feast that must be seen on the big screen in order to be appreciated in full.