The multi-award-winning feature debut from London-based visual artist, filmmaker, and composer Imran Perretta, Ish is a tender, deeply observant, and lyrical coming-of-age drama. Co-written with acclaimed playwright Enda Walsh (Hunger), the film is set within the South Asian and Middle Eastern community of Luton, centering on inseparable 12-year-old best friends Ish (Farhan Hasnat) and Maram (Yahya Kitana).
Their summer is initially defined by carefree boyhood moments: football, video games, and shared laughter. However, their world is abruptly upended when they fall foul of racial profiling during a traumatic police stop-and-search.
Shot in luminous, striking monochrome by cinematographer Jermaine Canute Edwards and featuring a brilliant supporting cast including singer-songwriter Joy Crookes, Ish avoids conventional urban drama tropes. Instead, it channels the clear-eyed, classical lyricism of masterpieces like Kes and The Apu Trilogy, offering a compassionate and urgent portrait of contemporary British childhood under surveillance.
★ ★ ★ ★
‘A poignant and poetic urban pastoral’
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
‘Bursts with life thanks to its magnificent central performances’
– Hannah Strong, Little White Lies