International Premiere
Written by Iman Qureshi, The Ceremony is a searingly honest take on non-binary marriage, with a twist. The film is part of MicroPlays, a series of short digital plays made as a collaboration between Open Sky Productions and some of the UK’s most exciting writers. It’s a formal ceremony with personal touches, featuring performances that are beautiful and sensitive. In these matters sexual orientation is not relevant, love and its challenges affect everyone and anyone.
Community Partner
Amaka Okafor, Yaz Zadeh, Erika Poole
UK
2021
English
Featured in:
International Shorts: Connect/Disconnect/Reconnect
The films in this shorts program are all about connections. People connecting with one another, dealing with change, or rediscovering a part of themselves and their past.
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All of a Sudden
An eldercare manager (Virginie Efira) forms a life-changing bond with a terminally ill playwright (Tao Okamoto) in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden, a tender, philosophically rich meditation on mortality, care, and what we owe one another.
Roid
Roid follows Sadhu, a solitary man who marries a mysterious young woman from a distant village. But when her behaviour disrupts the quiet rhythm of Sadhu's life, he decides to abandon her — only for her to reappear, again and again.
Paris Paris
Three undocumented men from different backgrounds navigate Paris's luminous metropolis in this stirring drama of dislocation. Gorgeously composed and often humorous, Paris Paris questions what it means to truly belong.
Last Movies
What would film history look like reorganized around the last movies various cultural figures watched before they died? Last Movies embraces this simple concept to offer a deliberately skewed and mordantly funny love letter to cinema.
Light Pillar
Xu Zao’s mellow, melancholy film follows a bottom-tier employee at a decaying film studio as he gets pulled into an online obsession. Mixing animation with live action, this is a whimsical satire and a lament for the pre-digital world.
Credits
Producer
Martina Klich
Screenwriter
Iman Qureshi
Cinematography
Ahmet Husseyin
Editor
Flaura Atkinson
Production Design
Fiona Mclean
Director
Lisle Turner
Lisle Turner has written and directed two features, Here and Now (2014) and the award-winning Cold (2022). He has directed many shorts including Oxygen (2008) and Canvas (2010). Turner has been nominated at the BAFTA Awards for his work on Channel 4’s The Secret Policeman’s Ball (2006) and has written eight plays with The Idiot Colony which are currently being adapted for television. He is now preparing for his next feature, Mal.
Filmography: Here and Now (2014); Cold (2022)
