Ish Finds Monumentality in Boyhood
By: Ellie Powers
“The film’s in black and white?!” Director Imran Perretta says when I ask about his choice to keep his feature debut monochrome. This is what we call in the bizz, the interviewer’s moment of panic. Oh no, they sent me the wrong file. Then both Imran and cinematographer Jermaine Canute Edwards laugh at my expense.
“When someone says it’s in black and white, we always say, ‘is it?’ We’ll stop. We’ll stop,” Jermaine assures me. The joke plus the conversation that followed encapsulates the partnership behind the camera as well as the film itself. Ish, which premiered at Venice Critics’ Week, follows 12-year-old best friends ‘Ish’ and Maram, who wrestle to hold on to their friendship in the wake of a police stop and search.
Despite its political weight, the film prioritizes the levity of youth. That spirit is reflected behind the camera, where Imran and Jermaine found an intuitive collaboration. “I think our eyes match,” Jermaine says. Imran agrees. “It didn't feel like we were compromising or meeting in the middle. It felt like we'd created something new.”
That creative alignment helped them build on the visual language that Imran began developing before Jermaine joined. Imran traveled to Luton to shoot exploratory footage and found that “Luton loves black and white.” The final decision to keep the film monochrome went beyond aesthetics. “It strips away context and makes the image purer,” Imran says. “Hopefully, we elevated the environment of Luton, showing it in a way I don’t think it’s ever been shown. It feels classical, with a beauty I didn’t expect while filming, but it comes across that way in the cinema.”
The city’s scale mirrors the boys’ experience. “If the city feels monumental to us as adults, that’s exactly how it feels to the boys. It’s a small town, but to them, the scale is much bigger. As a viewer, you experience that scale through their eyes.”
That perspective shaped how the camera moved. Imran and Jermaine made a conscious decision to separate the visual language of the home from the outside world. Inside the home, the camera stayed still or moved “in a linear, classical way,” as Jermaine describes it, because the home is meant to be a reflective, mournful space. Outside, in the woods and other places where the boys roam, they used a dolly and handheld setups. Steadicam shots were scattered in to create cohesion among Ish, Maram, and the other boys, making them feel like a unified group.
Because of the confined interiors and the dynamic movement outdoors, they chose the Alexa 35. They knew they’d need to keep the camera rolling to let the boys find the rhythm of a scene, and the Alexa 35 allowed them that flexibility. For instance, when Ish and Maram play video games, letting the camera run captured their natural dynamic.
Those moments when the camera sat rolling worked thanks to the boys’ chemistry. A relationship which Imran did not have to fabricate. All the boys were street cast, but the bond between Ish and Maram had been building for years. “We’ve known each other since nursery,” they told Imran, only after he remarked how comfortable they seemed together during chemistry reads. “That chemistry that you see on screen, they've been developing that since they were little kids,” Imran says.
Imran’s approach to sound was just as personal. In addition to composing the score, he writes commissioned work for orchestras. While working on the treatment in 2021, he composed “Ish’s Theme,” the second cue in the film, which remained almost unchanged in the final cut.
To finish the picture, they chose colourist Jateen Patel, not just for his deep celluloid expertise, but because of his lived experiences. “It's a film about brown boys, and Jat is a brown boy, so he has an innate understanding of the circumstances that we were trying to portray,” Jermaine says. That perspective shaped the final look of the film in ways that were both technical and emotional.
Reflecting on the collaboration, Jat shares, “Imran and Jermaine brought such an easy-going energy, direction and precision in every facet of the project. It was such a wonderful thing to see how everyone was drawn and energised to that. From our early conversations, I could tell their artistic backgrounds, practical know how, storytelling and general approach to filmmaking was a clear indicator of how the process would go.”
Jermaine adds context to their process: “We went into Panavision, played around with lenses, and brought some footage to Jat. He had already built a look to apply to the camera, so we experimented with the textures available on the Alexa 35 and landed on something quite subtle.”
When it came time to grade, Jat took that baseline and added his magic, which Jermaine and Imran referred to as the “secret sauce.” Thanks to the Alexa 35’s latitude, they were able to soften the whites with a touch of gray to the highlights and avoid a look that was too bright or contrasty.
Jat's experience with handling and developing celluloid, which he gained working his way up in film labs, also proved incredibly useful. Imran references Jat’s encyclopedic knowledge of film stock and notes that Jat would intrinsically understand what he was asking for. “We love the look of tri-x pushed one stop,” he’d tell Jat. “And Jat would know exactly what you're talking about and dial it up.”
Remaining humble, Jat adds, “I could say I did a lot in the final DI but the edit and neg that Imran and Jermaine gave was exceptional. We did have fun, however, dodging and burning the frame whilst we used the music and edit to push and pull the look along with the beats in the boys’ journey.”
Ish explores how our perception of the world shifts as we grow and how the world’s perception of us does the same. It invites us to see the world through preteen eyes, as vast, thrilling, and sometimes overwhelming.
Behind the camera, Imran and Jermaine mirror this journey with a creative partnership rooted in trust and playfulness. Their approach balances seriousness with spontaneity, refining setups in the name of how can we do this better? It certainly helps that their eyes match.
ISH was recently nominated for two BFI Awards:
Best Sound
Breakthrough Producer
