Ish      Director: Imran Perretta Cert: NoneGenre: DramaStarring: Farhan Hasnat, Yahya Kitana, Sudha Bhuchar, Avin Shah, Joy Crookes Running Time: 1 hr 28 minsImran Perretta’s impressive feature debut, winner of the People’s Choice Award at Venice last September, centres on two (initially) freewheeling 12-year-old friends spending the summer in Luton before a police stop-and-search upends their relationship. Drawing on familiar coming-of-age territory, Enda Walsh’s script anchors its drama in the everyday experiences of two British Muslim boys negotiating grief, family life and racial profiling. Two IRL best pals, who’ve known each other since they were infants, head the cast, adding to the verisimilitude.Farhan Hasnat plays Ish, still reeling from the death of his mother; Yahya Kitana is Maram, a Palestinian-British boy whose confidence masks a more unsettled home life. Their chemistry provides a rare emotional weight. Whether building dens under Luton Airport’s flight paths, tearing through suburban streets on bikes or trying to impress older boys, their relationship never feels performed.Perretta, working with co-writer Walsh, packs a great deal into an 87-minute running time. Ish’s muted bereavement is complicated by questions of identity, institutional racism, Gaza, social media, adolescence, parental cluelessness, and belonging.What holds these strands together is its specific sense of place. Shot in crystalline black and white by cinematographer Jermaine Canute Edwards, Luton becomes more than a backdrop, with scrubland, railings, pylons, football firms, and CCTV cameras coalescing into a portrait of ordinary childhood freedom that coexists alongside constant surveillance and menace. Perretta’s restrained, classically influenced score – the artist-turned-film-maker is also a composer here – eschews the poppy musical cues of British youth dramas for evocative strings, clapping and choral stylings.The film’s defining sequence, based on Perreta’s own experience, during which Maram is violently dragged into a van by police while Ish runs, avoids easy moral judgment.[ Dressing Room review: Enda Walsh creates a meditative, moving 15 minutesOpens in new window ]For Maram, it represents an unforgivable betrayal: “He left me for dead,” he tells a mutual friend. For Ish, it is a source of terror, constant guilt and social mortification. The incident infects a friendship that had previously seemed inseparable. The fallout functions as an urgent, unsentimental snapshot of contemporary Britain. The parting shot of both boys is a kicker. In cinemas from July 31