The film’s director said she has been delighted by the audience reactions while attending screenings of Nostalgie in Great Britain.
“They actually get the stoic Belfast humour,” Ferguson said.
“There was a concern, I guess, that that might be lost on people, but that seems to have landed which is great.”
Ferguson now lives in England, having left her native Belfast more than 20 years ago.
She said one of the things that interested her about Erskine’s story was exploring the views of “an Englishman” to modern-day Belfast.
She said Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland as a whole were “having this huge cultural cache right now, particularly over the water”.
But she added: “It seems to be very much culturally based on our music and our art and our writers and our filmmaking, but without really understanding where it’s coming from and what’s driving it.”
The director explained that she felt there has been a certain “apathy” towards Northern Ireland and its “post-conflict histories” and Nostalgie was a “sideways” look at the result of that apathy.
“I guess all of that to me was very potent to explore as a filmmaker. It’s been fascinating showing the film in England.”