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Features Live Action Movies

After Love

A girl in both ports

After Love
Directed by Aleem Khan
Certificate 12a, 89 minutes
Released in cinemas 4 June, on Blu-ray and BFI Player 23 August

*****

The South Coast. Mary (Joanna Scanlan) is married to Ahmed (Nasser Memarzia), a ferry captain who regularly travels to France and back in the course of work. They fell in love as teenagers. She is white British, he is south Asian. She has converted to Islam, his religion, and integrated into his Urdu-speaking family, a language she has herself learned.

One day he comes home from work, and dies while she’s making him a cup of tea. Going through his effects, she checks his mobile phone, and discovers messages from another woman. She goes over to France to confront Geneviève (Natalie Richard)… [read more]

Full theatrical review in Reform magazine.

NB Blu-ray contains the director’s earlier short Three Brothers (2014) plus an informative 46-minute zoom Q&A, trailer and teaser trailer, a stills gallery, and (first pressing only) a booklet containing writing on the film.

Trailer:

2021

Cinemas

Friday, June 4th

Blu-ray, BFI Player (subscription exclusive)

Monday, August 23rd.

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Apostasy

Disfellowshipped

Apostasy
Written and Directed by Dan Kokotajlo
Certificate PG, 96 minutes
Released 27 July (Cinemas and On Demand)

First published in Reform magazine. Now on Amazon, BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema.

In Dan Kokotajlo’s debut feature film Apostasy, student sisters Alex (Molly Wright) and Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) and their working mum Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) are Jehovah’s Witnesses in Manchester waiting for the New System, when Christ will return and paradise will be restored on earth. Alex has a blood condition and is only alive because a hospital nurse gave her a transfusion after birth before her mum and the elders were aware of it: now she’s 18 and must decide for herself whether she will allow transfusion in the event of a life-threatening emergency. She’s a model Witness, attending Urdu Bible classes in order to take the Word to the local ethnic minority community.

Luisa, in contrast, gets pregnant. Read the rest

First published in Reform magazine. Now on Amazon, BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema.

Trailer: