A film by Deva Palmier
Alja falls in love online with Ebb, a self-described jihadi, and longs to visit him. But he insists on setting a series of escalating challenges to prove that she’s tough enough. When events start taking a darker turn, it becomes Alja’s turn to challenge Ebb’s commitment and integrity.
Practice is a deceptively dark film that focuses on themes of grooming and radicalization, and also challenges us to look at the way we pre-judge people of different nationalities and religions.
2018 | 9 min | Color | UK | 2.35 | In Arabic & English with English subtitles
This film screens as part of the shorts program Moths, Flames.
Director Biography
Deva Palmier originally trained as an actress at Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a BP Scholarship and after working as an actress and touring across Canada with her own theater company, she spent the summer studying filmmaking at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, on a William and Eva Fox Fellowship.
Her short films have been selected for many awards including a Silver Plaque at Chicago International Film Festival and a BBC New Filmmakers award.
FISHY, distributed by Shorts International and can now be found on iTunes.
In 2006, Deva was mentored by Gurinder Chadha for a year on the Guiding Lights scheme.
Filmmakers
Deva Palmier, Director
Mandy Lee, Writer
Jon Conway, Producer
Annemarie Lean Vercoe, Director of Photography
Marco Ruffatti, Editor
Steve Single, (credit Re-Recording Mixer), Sound Designer
Yazz Ahmed, Composer
Emily Jones, Casting
Matt Osborne, Color Grading
Cast
Shaniaz Hama Ali
Amrou Al-Kadhi