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Memran Perretta always knew that the title of his first film would be “Ish” – short for Ishmail, the name of the 12-year-old boy from Luton at the heart of his story. Later people pointed out similarities to other upcoming films with three characters in the title: Kes by Ken Loach, and Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy. Now, when the reviews are coming, the comparison of Kes and Apu keeps coming. Like them, Ish is a poetic film that grabs your heart and pulls you into a child’s view of the world.
The response has been overwhelming, says Perretta, and a relief. “It’s funny that people compare Ish to those movies and not Teens. Why, because it shows kids talking in slang and going into bars? He shakes his head. “I always say I don’t read reviews, but I’ve definitely read every one. I can’t help myself. And we have been lucky; The reviews have been amazing. The family has been in the middle. So you read them, and the title is: ‘I thought it was going to be like Childhood.
Perretta has just returned from a trip to Poland to open a new exhibition of his work. Yesterday he was on Father Britain in London, making noise on his 2019 video The Destructors, about the lives of young Muslims, who just went to the show. She is in the process of buying her first home and has two young children. “I’m proud,” he says with a laugh, chatting for a minute, showing no sign of fatigue.
He grew up in Streatham, south London, the son of a British-Italian father who worked as a music journalist. His mother, who was born in Bangladesh, was a child protection worker: “She was a high-profile, fiery politician.” He died of cancer at the age of 21. Perretta studied architecture for three years, before switching to art. During Covid in 2020, when the Turner prize was cancelled, he was one of 10 artists who received a bursary of £10,000. But it never crossed his mind that he would direct a film, he said: “I never thought in a million years that I would be able to do that. It was the head of BBC Film at the time, Rose Garnett, who approached him about writing a film deal after seeing The Destructors at a museum in London.
Ish is part autobiographical, based on the first time Perretta was stopped and searched by the police at the age of 13. This was after the attacks of 9 / 11 in an era of increased Islamophobia. He said: “My wife ran away and dragged me into the car and started asking me a lot of strange questions. “I was very young, I didn’t understand what was going on. It was very sad. This was 100% when I was a child when I lost my innocence. Because I understood how I looked outside of my family, outside of school, outside of the villages, these safe places.
It made him political, says Perretta. From then on I had something to work on. If I look at everything I’ve been doing over the years, creating works that people see on the walls of a museum or whatever, it all comes from the time of seeing yourself as other people see you. He co-wrote Ish and Irish playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh.
Like all leading come-of-age movies, Ish is cultural and international. Set in Luton, it follows 12-year-old Ish (Farhan Hasnat) and his best friend Maram (Yahya Kitana) as they wander around on holiday. It is their last summer of childhood: they are still young enough to build caves in the forest and pick blackberries. Ish’s mother has just passed away, and there is grief at home. Maram, who is already a foot taller than Ish and has the beginnings of a moustache, is hanging out with the big boys, getting into trouble.
The stop and search, when it happens, is shocking – watching a child being grabbed in the street, forcibly and without parental consent. When I say this to Perretta, she points Child Q’s latest issue and stories about interviews conducted by children under the government’s anti-bullying policy Ban without a parent or teacher in the room. “It happens to some children more than others. I wanted to explore what it means to adopt children before their time.”
All the children in Ish are played by original actors. The casting process lasted six months, and tested about 900 local boys. Unknown to the filmmakers, the two who played the roles of Ish and Maram were childhood friends. Their relationship is reflected on the screen; chemistry is impossible. “It was about letting them go their own way, letting them do what they naturally do, which is solving each other,” says Peretta.
Ish was shot in Luton over five weeks in the summer of 2024. Perretta’s wife, a high school teacher, grew up in the street, and has been visiting the area for years. Perretta says commuter towns take a lot of stick. Luton in particular has been in the news for the wrong reasons, as the home town of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) or the so-called capital of Islamic extremism. “But at the center of it was a group going about their business,” he says.
He shot the film in bright monochrome. Why, I ask? “What I thought was black and white didn’t ruin Luton. It gave it glory. It made the concrete feel like marble.
Filming dates were limited to comply with laws protecting child actors. “When you make a movie with kids, you have an egg tester. She says, the secret wasn’t too valuable to pin down. “We didn’t have time.” That sounds tight, I say. Perretta gives a natural nod. “I’d say I’m not smart about it. It sounds cheesy, but when you care about someone dying, the movie isn’t so bad. He is smiling. “It’s a strange thing to make a film. For an individual it’s very important. But on the scale of all the things that can happen in life, it’s not like that.”
Perretta says her mother’s illness is what drove her to become an artist. “After he died, I thought: I have to sacrifice myself to do the things I want to do.” He was 18 years old when he was diagnosed with cancer, and he was one of the caregivers, along with his father and younger sister. That was my first degree. And when my mother died, I was working as an architect and I thought: Life is too short to design toilets. What was he doing, making toilets? I used to work in a group that was far from toilets. He stayed for a week. “I was like: Nah, I’m fine.”
When his mother fell ill, he visited London’s Serpentine theater to see Blue, Derek Jarman’s final film, which was first released in 1993 a few months before he died of AIDS-related complications. “It was amazing to watch the film. I sat there for hours. I’ve never had this kind of technology, except for school trips to the Tate. It was amazing. I thought: ‘God, I have to do it.’ I just have to run through the things that make me angry and scared, and work on them. That was the beginning. ” He laughs. “And here we are.”
