‘Rye Lane’ Director Raine Allen-Miller On Her Buzzy Feature Debut, Steve McQueen’s Influence & Searchlight’s Plan For A Straight To Streaming US Release
Few feature films in recent memory have generated as much excitement around the city of London as Searchlight’s latest pic Rye Lane.
Written and directed by debut feature filmmaker Raine Allen-Miller, the romantic comedy, set in the bustling, predominantly Black neighborhood of Peckham, South London, is the talk of the town following its strong debut out of Sundance in January.
Deadline’s Anna Smith described the pic as a “sunny, irreverent take on life and love” that provides an “energetic bounce forward” for the romantic comedy genre. “I wish I could step back and embrace it all, but I’m so nervous,” Allen-Miller told Deadline shortly before the film’s UK premiere at Peckhamplex, a historic community cinema in South London. “My worst nightmare is that people from South London watch it and think, Oh, God.” The pic follows Dom, played by David Jonsson (Industry), and Yas (Vivian Oparah), a pair of twentysomethings nursing bad breakups, who find each other as they roam around the city, falling into a collection of tricky episodes, each more surreal and comedic than the last.
Bloods scribes Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia wrote the film’s screenplay, which was handed to Allen-Miller by prolific British indie producer Damian Jones (See How They Run), who shares a credit on the pic with Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo (Top Boy).
