Skip to main content
The Ceremony film image, director Lisle Turner

The Ceremony

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

Director
Cast

Amaka Okafor, Yaz Zadeh, Erika Poole

Credits
Country of Origin

UK

Year

2021

Language

English

Film Contact
10 min

Featured in:

Island of Freedom film image, director Petr Januschka

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.

 

MORE INFO

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Cover-Up

Dir. Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus
117 min

Oscar-winner Laura Poitras and Emmy-winner Mark Obenhaus turn their lens on legendary journalist Seymour Hersh in a riveting film that unpacks how one reporter exposed the truths behind My Lai and Abu Ghraib — and what it takes to hold power to account.

Image: © The New York Times

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Secret Agent

Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
158 min

Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Wisdom of Happiness

Dir. Philip Delaquis & Barbara Miller
90 min

An audience with the Dalai Lama, who, at 90, looks back on his life and shares the tenets of Buddhism as a practical guide to surviving the 21st Century with joy and compassion.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Tale of Silyan

Dir. Tamara Kotevska
81 min

From Oscar-nominee Tamara Kotevska (Honeyland), this is a poetic, curious and enchanting non-fiction fable about a farmer's son who turns into a stork.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Cutting Through Rocks
Cutting Through Rocks film image; person riding a motorcycle backlit by a sunset

Cutting Through Rocks

Dir. Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni
95 min

Winner of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi — motorcyclist, midwife, and first-ever councilwoman elected in her Iranian village. A vérité triumph by Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Nutcracker at Wethersfield

Dir. Annie Sundberg
83 min

Back in the long, dark Covid winter of 2020, there was no way the New York City Ballet could mount their traditional Christmas production of Tchaikovsky's fairytale. But choreographer Troy Schumacher had a dream to save the show -- reimagining a classic.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Martina Klich

Screenwriter

Iman Qureshi

Cinematography

Ahmet Husseyin

Editor

Flaura Atkinson

Production Design

Fiona Mclean

Director

Lisle Turner headshot, The Ceremony 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)