Filmmaker Jack King to shoot new independent feature in Bradford and the Dales

Filming begins in January on The Ceremony, an independent feature written and directed by King, billed as ‘a testament to the North, a celebration of its multiculturalism, the Yorkshire landscape and the hardiness and generosity of its people’. King describes the film as ‘a moral thriller’ which tells the story of two migrant labourers working at a hand carwash in Bradford who are forced to cover up the suicide of one of their co-workers, who is undocumented, and what they then endure physically and emotionally as they determine to give their friend a dignified burial out in the wintry countryside.

The seeds of the film were sown in a 2016 short , a dark thriller, that King made entitled Pit Stop which was set in a hand carwash in his hometown of Bradford. “Through the research I did for that film I met quite a lot of young men working there, who were mostly Kurdish or Romanian, and I became interested in the inner lives of those people,” he says. “I have been working on The Ceremony for about two and half years now. I started with a basic structure for the story and then it was about going out into the community. A lot of it was about gaining trust. People were, understandably, slightly suspicious of me to being with – claiming to be a filmmaker and wanting to talk to them, but eventually people agreed to share their stories with me.”

Written in collaboration with those who have lived experience of living and working on the margins of society, it is a story that deals with universal themes – morality, faith, life and death. “The two migrant workers at the centre of the film are a young Romanian who finds the body of one of the illegal workers at the car wash and decides to take the body out into the countryside,” explains King. “He takes with him an older Kurdish man – and he feels it is his moral duty to give him a rightful burial. These two are then stuck out in the countryside arguing about how best to proceed. It is a bit of a power struggle, really. And we are showcasing the beauty of the Yorkshire Dales but through a fresh lens and from a new perspective.”

Two professional actors have been cast in the lead roles – Romanian actor Tudor Cucu Dumitrescu and Kurdish German actor Erdal Yildiz. “They are incredibly talented and they completely get the story,” says King. “For the supporting cast we want to find real people, young men who are first generation immigrants to the UK who have not necessarily acted before and who maybe have first-hand experience of the kind of work the characters in the film do.”

As part of the development of the script, King also spent some time in Romania working with Romanian writers. “That was really important as this is not my story,” he says. “I wanted to make sure that this is authentic and representative, and that I was getting the voices of real people down on paper.” The film has already received funding from British Film Institute Network and from the Okre fund which supports creative projects that ‘challenge misleading perceptions’ and the Wainwright Trust. King and his producers Lucy Meer and Hollie Bryan have raised 75 percent of the budget needed to bring the film to life and are now seeking investors – individuals, local businesses or entrepreneurs – who share their vision for arts and film in the region in order to reach their funding goal. “We have assembled a really good team – we are punching above our weight in terms of who is involved, the cast and crew; we are doing a lot with what we have,” says King. “We just need to get a bit of extra finance for that final push.”

The film, which is intended for UK and international audiences, celebrates our shared humanity, empathy and generosity. “It is a human story about complex, inspiring and resilient individuals living through hardship a long way from home,” says King. “It is an ultimately hopeful story that offers an insight into the rich inner psychological and spiritual lives of these two marginalised outsiders.”

The Ceremony begins shooting on location in Bradford and the Yorkshire Dales in January. For details on how to invest visit ceremonyfilm.co.uk