It evokes working-class family life in Liverpool during the 1940s and early 1950s, paying particular attention to the role of popular music, Hollywood cinema, light entertainment and the public house within this tight-knit community.

The first section, 'Distant Voices', chronicles the early life of a working-class Catholic family living under a thoroughly psychotic, abusive, violent and mostly hateful father.

The second section, 'Still Lives', sees the children grown up and emerging into a brighter 1950s Britain, only a few years from rock and roll and the Beatles, yet somehow still a lifetime away.

I was able to rebuild it for The Long Day Closes, but we didn't have a huge budget for Distant Voices, Still Lives, so we had to find something that looked... working class.

In Paul Farley's BFI book, Terence Davies describes the process in which music came alive in the shooting of the film.

The film also features a juxtaposition of Ella Fitzgerald singing "Taking a Chance on Love" and a scene of brutal domestic violence.

The website's consensus reads: "Bracingly original and beautifully composed, Distant Voices, Still Lives is an invigorating period drama that finds director Terence Davies in peak form.