SUNDAY NIGHTS
Sunday Nights is a film about what we inherit from the people who leave us. Set during a single walk on the day of a funeral, it follows a man who isn't mourning a father so much as mourning the relationship that never existed, and confronting, for the first time, how much that loss has steadily governed his life. The conversation he never got to have becomes the one he has with his mother, in fragments, across a walk through the cemetery grounds as the light fades, building toward the moment he recognises a pattern and chooses, without resolution, to meet it.
Written & Directed by Remco Merbis
Featuring Deborah Cornelius & Joey French
Cinematography - Remco Merbis
Produced by Remco Merbis & Charles Logan Clare
1st AD - Charles Logan Clare
Sound recordist - Simon Chmiewliski
Gaffer - Mikey Sneddon
BTS / Unit photographer: Liam Keown
Production assistant: Ellie Williams
Production assistant: Jordan Allan
Edit / Grade / Sound mix / Graphics - Remco Merbis
Music - Niamh J O'Donnell
Location - Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol, UK
Director’s statement
Some stories begin with an absence.
I grew up with a father who was there but not quite present, a man of few words and simple habits. The choices he made, about family, about faithfulness, about what gets left unsaid, shaped the choices I was determined not to make.
When he died, I sat in the funeral service and realised how much had never been said between us. How much never would be.
Sunday Nights grew out of that silence. It is not an autobiographical film. Much of it comes from my own experience, but I expect it'll be recognisable to people who've lived something similar. It asks whether damage passes down through families like a language no one chose to learn, and whether, when you finally see the pattern, you can still choose to break it.
I wanted to make something that sits with discomfort rather than resolving it, where the most important things happen in the spaces between words.
We are all, in some way, still becoming our parents. This film asks what we do when we notice.
