Tuesday 16 October 2018

Ben Sharrock's Limbo has started shooting in The Outer Hebrides

LIMBO is the new feature film from writer / director Ben Sharrock, who picked up the prestigious Michael Powell Award for his debut feature Pikadero. The film began a five-week shoot on The Uists in the Outer Hebrides on October 15th.


LIMBO is produced by Irune Gurtubai (Pikadero) for Caravan Cinema alongside Angus Lamont ('71 and The Girl with All the Gifts) and is financed by Film4, Screen Scotland and the BFI. The executive producers are Julia Oh for Film4, Ross McKenzie for Screen Scotland and David Segal-Hamilton and Lizzie Francke for the BFI. Protagonist Pictures will look after international sales.


The cast is led by AMIR EL-MASRY (Jack Ryan, The State, The Night Manager) as Omar, alongside VIKASH BHAI as Farhad, OLA OREBIYI as Wasef and KWABENA ANSAH as Abedi. Sidse Babett Knudsen (Duke of Burgundy, Borgen) and Kais Nashif (Tel Aviv on Fire – Best Actor in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival 2018) join in supporting roles. LIMBO will also feature non-actors in small roles and as extras, including refugees who have made their home across Scotland and locals from the Outer Hebrides.


LIMBO is an offbeat observation of refugees waiting to be granted asylum on a fictional remote Scottish island. It focuses on Omar, a young Syrian musician who is burdened by the weight of his grandfather's oud, which he has carried all the way from his homeland. The idiosyncratic stylistic sensibilities of Sharrock's filmmaking style blend drama with melancholic absurdist humour, a tonal combination that created critical acclaim and a strong festival buzz for his and producer Irune Gurtubai's first feature Pikadero.