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Exclusive: Here’s a first image from The Lady of Heaven, Eli King’s historical drama chronicling two interviewing storylines set centuries apart: A young Iraqi child’s journey amidst a battle-scarred country to learn the power of patience, and the historical tale of Lady Fatima.

The $15M movie stars Ray Fearon, Christopher Sciueref, Mark Anthony Brighton, Denise Black, Lucas Bond, Sami Karim, Albane Courtois, Matthew Brenher, Chris Jarman, Yasmin Mwanza, Dimitri Andreas and Oscar Garland. It is produced by Matthew Kuipers and Enlightened Kingdom, and executive produced by Richard Rionda Del Castro, Irakli Chikvaidze and Abdul Malik Shlibak. Oscar winner John Stephenson was as creative consultant.

Hannibal Media will be handling worldwide rights at the virtual European Film Market this week.

TV documentary filmmaker director Bruce Goodison spent three years making this film with real asylum seekers to gain a more authentic voice to the immigration story. He also trained them in filmmaking so they could tell the stories from their perspective, within a fictional context (co-written by Goodison and Charlotte Colbert). The result is a more spontaneous work than usual that is a little rough around the edges but altogether unique.

The three stories the film centres are based on a collection of several real-life experiences of unaccompanied minors coming to the UK and entering the asylum system: Zizidi (Yasmin Mwanza, debuting) from Guinea, who was circumcised as a child and suffered a stillbirth and a botched caesarean, was brutalised by her husband and his friends for trying to flee; Confident Omar (Noof Ousellam), the longest-staying refugee, who suffered at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan; Finally, Abdul (Zarrien Masieh,...