Ish

The bones of Ken Loach are felt throughout Ish, the feature debut from filmmaker, artist and musician Imran Perretta. Co-written alongside Enda Walsh, this urban coming-of-age drama centres around Ish (Farhan Hasnat), a 12-year-old boy living in Luton who’s recently lost his mother. He spends his summer holiday hanging out with best friend Maram (Yahya Kitana), picking berries in the woods under the airport flightpath and playing video games in Ish’s bedroom. However, the pair’s lives are sent down different paths when Maram fails to escape from a racially motivated stop and search. While Maram is drawn towards a dangerous new friend group, Ish comes to accept the realities of growing up within political and racial tensions in this beautifully haunting story of youth and friendship.

Shot in an elegant black and white by cinematographer Jermaine Canute Edwards, Perretta deploys a poetic cinematic language where each shot flows naturally into the next. The Luton he depicts is a world where the boys are surrounded by reports of attacks on Palestine and can be targeted by the police at any moment. It’s somewhere they need to talk tough to fit in with older teens and scrawl “Free Gaza” on phone boxes, but it’s also a place where they can gaze in awe at planes passing overhead and, in one memorable scene, be dazzled by fireworks. It’s this continuous push and pull between childhood and adulthood that serves as both the heart of the film and the force that drives the friends apart.

Hasnat and Kitana are remarkable throughout, with each of the young actors delivering poignant and nuanced performances. Kitana does an extraordinary job conveying the anger that compels Maram to lash out against the world around him, while Hasnat’s understated performance speaks volumes. Sudha Bhuchar is another wonderful addition to the cast as Ish’s quick-witted grandmother, with Joy Crookes and Avin Shah also giving strong turns as Ish’s sister and father.

Ish is much more than a coming-of-age tale about friends growing apart. It’s an exploration of family, masculinity, youth and current racial tensions, all of which is handled wonderfully by an ensemble of extraordinary performances and masterful direction from Perretta in a sensational feature debut.

Andrew Murray

Ish is released in select cinemas on 31^st July 2026.

Watch the trailer for Ish here: