Invada Records, the Bristol label founded by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and known for its darkly cinematic soundtracks to cult favourites like Ex Machina, Drive and Stranger Things, is stepping into a new world. This November, Invada Films makes its feature debut with GAME — a tense, atmospheric thriller set in the throbbing underbelly of Britain’s 1993 rave scene. The film stars Sleaford Mods’ frontman Jason Williamson and designer-turned-actor Marc Bessant, and marks the directorial debut of Bristol filmmaker John Minton, a longtime visual collaborator of Barrow’s.
Written by Rob Williams, the story follows two men — a thief and a poacher — forced into a brutal fight for survival amid the chaos of the early-’90s counterculture. It’s a world of strobe lights, paranoia, and pounding bass, where lawlessness and creativity collide. Shot in and around Bristol, the film is deeply rooted in the region’s creative DNA, channeling the grit and pulse that made the city’s music scene so distinctive.
“John and I have worked together for over 20 years on music projects and always talked about making a feature together,” says Barrow. “The experience of making GAME has been a joy from start to finish — everyone involved is a friend or a friend of a friend. It’s been like coming full circle.”
For Minton, whose visual work spans Portishead, Simple Minds, Noel Gallagher, and Beth Gibbons, the film is a natural evolution — cinematic but grounded in real places, real textures, real sweat. Williamson, meanwhile, brings his unmistakable grit to the screen, channelling the same unfiltered energy that has made Sleaford Mods one of Britain’s most vital bands.
Marc Bessant, known for his distinctive artwork for Portishead and Peter Gabriel, takes his first lead acting role, while Williams’ screenplay carries the taut, rhythmic precision of his comic writing for 2000AD and Marvel. GAME also marks a new chapter for Barrow himself, who, after years of composing soundtracks with Ben Salisbury for films like Annihilation and Civil War, is now turning to producing and writing. “For me, this is an exciting new career path,” he says. “I’ve already got another two films in development. GAME is just the beginning.”
The film premieres on 16 October as the opening night of the Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham — Williamson’s hometown — with the cast and crew in attendance for a Q&A. From 21 November, it opens across the UK and Ireland, accompanied by a series of festival previews and special screenings. A new trailer and poster, designed by Bessant, have just dropped, capturing the film’s raw analogue mood — part memory, part hallucination, entirely its own world.
GAME feels like the kind of debut that could only have come from Bristol: collaborative, uncompromising, and loud with intention — a story born out of friendship, community, and a shared desire to make something that hits as hard as a kick drum in a warehouse at 3am.
In UK cinemas from 21st November.
