Writer and Director: Rhys Marc Jones
There aren’t too many thrillers at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, so Rhys Marc Jones’ new film Black Church Bay starring Nick Cullen and Joe Locke is worth a look. Set in a small community school, there is a tightly wound quality to this story of a male teacher having an affair with his pupil before the student disappears. Dealing largely with the fall out of the disappearance, whether or not this relationship is a red herring underpins the story, but ultimately in search of an ending, it’s never entirely clear what Jones’ purpose might be beyond how power is used to manipulate and avoid.
Stealing away for a secret weekend on his boat, Barry has intense sex with the much younger Jasper who is far more reckless and easily bored. But waking up to find Jasper gone, Barry fears discovery when an investigation into his disappearance begins. As the police gather evidence, more details of Jasper’s sex life surface including an incriminating video of him with an unseen man, but will Barry be implicated in anything other than the affair?
Jones’ opens Black Church Bay with an unexpected power dynamic in which the younger man is the dominant one in the relationship and takes the lead in a series of almost violent sexual encounters. Interestingly, Barry doesn’t need the viewer to like Jasper (played by Joe Locke), making him spoiled and bratty, only interested in his phone and filming much of the encounter while being dismissive of the older man – and Jones conceals the other layer of their relationship during this opening segment. Nonetheless when he goes missing, the immediate implication is merely boredom and his own poor behaviour, rather than anything sinister. But it adds a layer to a story that becomes less about the procedural approach to searching for him – a character we are encouraged not to like – and more about the psychological strain on his teacher.
And aspects of what follows are well handled, certainly the ambiguity about Barry’s position and whether it has anything to do with the crime – Jones largely implies not but the possibility remains certainly when his professional position and reputation are threatened by the disappearance. How this changes Barry’s behaviour, his growing manipulation of other pupils, Jasper’s family and the police to try to elicit information are all useful strands that run through the film, taking a seemingly upstanding man who has made one mistake with an indiscrete boy and revealing all the darker forces of control and self-interest that put him in this position in the first place. And Nick Cullen is able to play all of those contradictions convincingly, a man in a position of authority who has made himself vulnerable, losing his grip as he fears the net tightening (which it may or may not be).
Less believable is the presentation of the film’s teenagers as sexually prolific young adults interested in little more than filming, photographing, videoing and posting everything they get up to. It’s useful for the plot but far less likely that no one would know about this before Jasper goes missing in such a tiny community. Most of the children feel like they’re really 25 – the age of some of the actors – and Jones is less interested in the nuance of teenage struggle or even the challenges of the LGBTQIA+ scene in remote locations – something which might have added both poignancy and purpose.
As with many films at this year’s festival, it doesn’t know how and when to end yet ultimately decides that resolving the disappearance of the boy is less interesting than the teacher covering his tracks, whatever they might be.
Black Church Bay is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
