Unknown teen Katie Jarvis takes Cannes by storm

An English teenager called Katie Jarvis, who has never acted before, is the toast of Cannes following Thursday's premiere of Fish Tank, one of three British films competing for the Palme d'Or. But the budding actress was unable to attend - and her director isn't sure whether she will act again.

Instead, 17-year-old Jarvis remained at home in Basildon, Essex with her boyfriend Brian, nursing their two-week-old baby.

After a standing ovation for the film, Andrea Arnold, director of Fish Tank, said: "I don't think she quite understands what it means. She has got an agent and she's been up for a couple of things which she's got but hasn't taken. I don't know if she wants to continue."

Jarvis plays 15-year-old Mia, the troubled daughter of a single mum living on a housing estate in Dartford. Mia's one passion is dance and when she befriends her mother's new boyfriend, an Irish charmer played by Michael Fassbinder, her miserable life finally takes a turn for the better.

Jarvis was chosen for the role after Arnold's casting agent spotted her having an argument with Brian across the platforms at Tilbury railway station. She refused to hand over her phone number at first because she thought it was "a wind-up".

Once she had been persuaded to attend auditions, she refused to dance. "I'd never done any dancing or anything like that and I didn't think I had a chance," Jarvis said in an interview this week. Arnold cleared the room and got her to dance alone in front of a camera. It worked.

"They called me on my birthday and told me I'd got the part," Jarvis recalled. "I cried my eyes out, I was well chuffed."

Critic Wendy Ide, writing for the Times today, said: "It's a tremendous performance from newcomer Katie Jarvis. She's an attack dog who snaps at social niceties; a girl who has grown and is starting to bloom into a young woman, all without the balm of tenderness and affection from anyone around her."

Whether Fish Tank will have them queuing at the multiplexes is another matter. Wesley Morris, film critic for the Boston Globe, called it a "predictably provocative exercise" and reported a colleague telling him after the screening: "You know the Cannes Film Festival has begun when somebody urinates on a living room carpet." ·