After Love
Director: Aleem Khan

Aleem Khan’s emotionally intelligent debut feature, After Love, has a quiet power that grips and never lets go. Almost wordlessly, in the easy silence of affectionate domesticity, Mary Hussain (Joanna Scanlan) takes a mug of tea to her husband, Ahmed, only to discover he has died peacefully in his armchair.

Mary wears the shalwar kameez and is an observant Muslim, although we learn later that, when she fell in love with Ahmed at 14, they had to hide their relationship from his family. That turns out to be the first in a long series of secrets and betrayals that bind Khan’s characters together.