About

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, John Seale’s cinematographic range is on full display in this richly romantic epic.

M | Nudity, sex, violence and occasional coarse language