News

Nadia Fall’s Brides is an urgent, unsettling, and deeply empathetic coming-of-age film, one that dares to explore the tension between agency and coercion in the radicalization of young women. Inspired by the true story of the Bethnal Green trio, three East London schoolgirls who left home in 2015 to join Isis, Brides follows Doe (Ebada Hassan) and Muna (Safiyya Ingar), two best friends who, feeling alienated in the U.K., set out on a perilous journey to Syria.

Their misguided plan is born from a longing for belonging, a desire to escape the contradictions of their upbringing, and the allure of a purpose larger than themselves. As their path becomes more dangerous, the cracks in their conviction begin to show. Through a precise and compassionate script by Suhayla El-Bushra, Brides challenges dominant narratives, exploring the vulnerability, defiance, and naivety that shape the choices of two young girls who see no...

Deftly directed by Nadia Fall from Suhayla El-Bushra's multi-layered screenplay, Brides examines a relatively recent, ripped-from-the-headlines subject ripe for sensationalism and exploitation. Namely, the subject is Western-born or -raised Muslim women who left the West behind for the illusory promises of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis). The film considers the subject with an admirable mix of sympathy, empathy, and compassion. Asking the “why?” without explicit judgment or implicit bias, Fall crafts a sensitively moving film centered on two young women, Doe (Ebada Hassan) and Muna (Safiyya Ingar), and the momentous, possibly fatal decision to leave the West and all its flaws and failures for the illusory promises of the Middle East. We meet Doe and Muna already committed to...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

They say, sometimes, the journey is more important than the destination. In renowned theatre director Nadia Fall’s “Brides,” two runaway teenagers journey away from their seaside English hometown to Istanbul. They plan to cross over the border to Syria so that they can join Isis. However, when their fixer – the one who was supposed to help them cross over doesn’t show up, the girls are in a definite mix. Their innocence leads them on an adventurous detour where they meet strangers – both good and bad – up until they decide to finally take the big plunge.

Based on the real-life story of two young women from East London who one day decided to leave their school, and fly across Europe to reach Istanbul, with the aim of getting across the border to join Isis, “Brides” stars Ebada Hassan as Doe and Sagiyaa Ingar as Muna, the teenage girls that...

Bad decisions — the kind that can be, if not reversed, at least remedied — are an essential part of adolescence: lapses that teach us about our desires, our impulses, our weaknesses, our essential character, and leave us with no greater damage than a throbbing hangover or a small, smudgy tattoo. Doe and Muna, the British 15-year-olds at the center of “Brides,” either haven’t been given much slack to make the right kind of wrong choices, or haven’t permitted themselves that liberty — so when they do err, it’s in seismically reckless, potentially ruinous fashion. Clearly inspired by cases like that of Shamima Begum, the London teen who traveled in secret to Syria to become an Isis bride, Nadia Fall’s debut feature seems on the surface like a hot-button provocation, but it’s surprisingly humane and good-humored in its attempt to understand the individual lives behind a sensational headline issue.

America under Trump’s second presidency is fearful for its borders and the potential terrorists that might be coming in through them. Britain, under the comparatively liberal Keir Starmer, has a rather more niche anxiety: that its citizens will leave and then return as insurgents. This seemingly unlikely scenario played out in real life in 2015, when 15-year-old London schoolgirl Shamima Begum and two friends flew to Turkey and crossed the border into Syria, where they became jihadi brides and lived in misery. When she was found four years later, in a Northern Syrian refugee camp, Begum made news a second time, this time for being rendered stateless by the Conservative government.

Begum’s case is surely an unspoken factor behind playwright Nadia Fall’s feature debut. Scripted by Suhayla El-Bushra — whose time in the writers’ room on Nida Manzoor’s underrated We are Lady Parts, a British sitcom about an all-female Muslim punk band,...

Exclusive: Nadia Fall, a noted artistic theatre director — she’s just moved from the Theatre Royal, Stratford East to run the mighty Young Vic — has directed her first feature film. It’s called Brides and is about two Muslim schoolgirls who leave their disruptive homes to travel via Turkey to Syria, where they join the Islamic state and offer themselves for marriage to men waging war.

It’s easy, and lazy, to jump to conclusions that the two girls — Muna and Doe, played extraordinarily well by Safiyya Ingar and Ebada Hassan, respectively — just kids really, are radicalized foot soldiers readying themselves to become terrorists, a bit like the real-life story of Shamima Begum, who left Britain in 2015, made her way to Syria and within two weeks was wed to a man who was later convicted of terrorism offenses.

They’re not that, Brides is not that.

“I can see on...

In Brides, UK teenagers Doe and Muna (Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar) take an ill-advised trip to Syria to escape the constant feeling of being othered that follows them at home. The film, the debut feature by Young Vic Theatre artistic director Nadia Fall, examines teenage girlhood through a distinct sociopolitical lens. The film was shot in three different locations, meaning the production had new crews every two weeks. Director of photography Clarissa Cappellani discusses working through those challenges and the films and photographs that she and Fall used as references. See all responses to our […]

The post “A Continuous Swing Between Memories and the Present.”: Dp Clarissa Cappellani on Brides first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Brides, UK teenagers Doe and Muna (Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar) take an ill-advised trip to Syria to escape the constant feeling of being othered that follows them at home. The film, the debut feature by Young Vic Theatre artistic director Nadia Fall, examines teenage girlhood through a distinct sociopolitical lens. The film was shot in three different locations, meaning the production had new crews every two weeks. Director of photography Clarissa Cappellani discusses working through those challenges and the films and photographs that she and Fall used as references. See all responses to our […]

The post “A Continuous Swing Between Memories and the Present.”: Dp Clarissa Cappellani on Brides first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

On the eve of Sundance Film Festival (January 23-Februrary 2) many filmmakers and executives had already descended upon Park City for the 2025 edition. As attendees sample the blend of work from established talents and the promise of discoveries, amid the customary mingling and business side of things there will be real stories of heartbreak.

Scroll down for list of acquisition titles

The devastating LA County wildfires are likely to have impacted many from the Los Angeles region who make the journey to the Utah mountains. The writer-director team of Meera Menon and husband Paul Gleason behind Midnight zombie selection Didn’t Die...

The penultimate Sundance Film Festival held in Park City, Utah—and the first held since the fest announced that it was shopping around for a new home—2025’s edition begins a two-year farewell to the slopes by rolling out a familiar slate of documentaries, daring Next selections, indie dramas with exactly one high-profile star,...

The 2025 edition of the Sundance Film Festival is a little over a week away and it’s time for us to talk about movies that will be the talk of Sundance, movies that push the envelope of imagination and reality, movies that should not be missed and lastly underrated movies that are a must watch as well. The list below is not comprehensive and the goal is not to rank order any of the movies in this list. From films by critically acclaimed directors like Ira Sachs and Richard Linklater to actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Diego Luna, Olivia Coleman, Dev Patel, Jennifer Lopez and Rose Bryne, the list also focuses on independent films by new exciting directors and filmmakers to look out for in the future. In no particular order, we are listing 25 feature films that are a must watch if you are planning to check out the festival.

Jimpa...

The UK industry gathered at the Cannes UK pavilion yesterday (May 16) to celebrate the work of the eight projects taking part in this year’s Cannes Great 8 showcase.

Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott, Sean Dunn’s The Fall Of Sir Douglas Weatherford and Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path were among the eight titles taking part, with filmmakers taking to the stage to discuss their projects.

Scroll down to see the full line-up

The only documentary in this year’s line-up is Witches, from Elizabeth Sankey, in which the filmmaker explores the unexpected connections...

Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott, Sean Dunn’s The Fall Of Sir Douglas Weatherford and Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path, featuring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, are among the eight films taking part in the Great 8 showcase, which presents new UK feature films from first-and second-time UK filmmakers to international distributors and festival programmers.

Now in its seventh year, the 2024 Great 8 showcase is funded and produced by the BFI and the British Council, with support from the Great Britain & Northern Ireland campaign, BBC Film and Film4.

In preparation for Cannes, unseen footage from...

UK outfit Bankside has boarded world sales on Brides, the debut feature from acclaimed theatre director and Screen Star of Tomorrow 2023 Nadia Fall, as production wraps.

The film, which shot in Wales, Turkey and Italy, stars newcomer Ebada Hassan and Layla’s Safiyya Ingar as two teenage girls in 2015, in search of freedom, friendship and belonging, who run away from their troubled lives in a seaside town with a misguided plan of travelling to Syria.

Nicky Bentham produces through London-based Neon Films, alongside Marica Stocchi of Rome-based Rosamont. Catryn Ramasut and Alice Lusher of Cardiff’s ie ie productions are co-producers.