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Partnering for the third time with director George Miller, Three Thousand Years of Longing is John Seale’s final, jewel-like film as cinematographer. Shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, this adaption of a short story by AS Byatt follows self-contained academic Alithea (Tilda Swinton) as she unleashes an ancient Djinn (Idris Elba) in her Istanbul hotel room. Alithea’s work as a narratologist – or studier of stories – makes her wary of the three wishes she is offered, and leads her to ask for the life story of her new companion. Moving between a sparse hotel room and flashbacks to the opulent courts of the Queen of Sheba and the Ottoman Empire, Seale’s cinematographic range is on full display in this richly romantic epic.

M | Nudity, sex, violence and occasional coarse language