After Love is the superb 2021 debut feature from English-Pakistani film-maker Aleem Khan. It is a subtle and surprising film, full of twists and turns, and it moves at a gentle pace. At its heart is a mesmerising and yet careful performance from Joanna Scanon, who is best known for her comic work in TV shows such as The Thick of It. Here she plays Mary, who converted to Islam to marry Ahmed many years ago. Her husband works on the ferries between Dover and Calais and they have a life of quiet domesticity until a sudden tragedy means that she has to re-evaluate everything.

After Love is a film that plays on the gaps between cultures, the secrets we hold, and the assumptions we have about other people. Scanon holds the film together with grace and a hidden determination, and she deservedly won the Leading Actress BAFTA in 2022.

Peter Bradshaw described After Love as ‘outstanding’, and gave it a five star review in the Guardian, writing: “We all have secrets, we all perform our own theatre of selfhood, in public for our friends, in private for our loved ones. Hardly anyone ever gets to look backstage. But that is what Mary is doing, and she is wretched but also strangely electrified by what she sees.”