Inspired by real-life heartbreak and trauma, British writer-co-director-producer-star Lloyd Eyre-Morgan reunited with his longterm collaborator, co-director-producer Neil Ely, to channel what he was feeling into their latest feature, the dark comedy drama Departures. Set in Manchester, Eyre-Morgan plays unassuming Northen gay thirty-something Benji, who falls for the wrong guy during a chance encounter at an airport departures gate, becoming entwined in a complicated, ultimately destructive relationship. Jake (David Tag) is super fit, elusive, and dominant, and Benji never knows where he stands with him as they steal time alone on secretive monthly sex-filled weekends away together in Amsterdam.
Made by a collective of Manchester-based queer working class filmmakers, Departures was shot over 12 days during the course of nine months, while many of the cast and crew worked full-time jobs during the week. The result is a raw, hilarious, and confronting take on a toxic relationship that went down a storm with audiences at multiple sold-out screenings at BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival in March 2025.
In London during BFI Flare, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and Neil Ely had an exclusive conversation with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about bringing Departures to the screen, their cinematic influences and favourite queer culture.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: Lloyd, what were some of the things that were on your mind as you wrote the screenplay?
Lloyd Eyre-Morgan: “I was in quite a bad place when it came to fruition. I was feeling how Benji feels in the film in some ways, so I decided to get it down on paper. Neil and I are extremely close. We’ve worked together for years and we wanted to channel what I was going through into a narrative. To do that, we used experiences from Neil’s past relationships as well as mine. We scrunched them both together and Departures was born. During that first month of filming I was not in a great place, but by the second month I’d started to process things a bit more and then I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m in a film. What have I done?’ But it was too late to stop by then, so we had to shoot the rest of it!”
So it’s very much autobiographically-inspired?
Llyod: “Yeah, a lot of what Benji’s feeling in the film, I’ve felt. I’ve been in similar relationships and it feels very close to home. It’s an incredibly personal piece. Obviously, I’m not going to delve into who those people are in my own life, but the film is basically our truth on screen. It’s what happened and we filmed it quite urgently while we were feeling it.”
Neil Ely: “There’s a lot of lived experience in there, either from one or the other of us. It was important to get some of it really right, like the sexual assault scene which comes from lived experience. We workshopped a lot around that to make sure that it felt authentic.”
Lloyd: “That in particular is Neil’s lived experience, so I wanted to get it right for him.”
What were some of the things that you were considering as you put that scene together?
Neil: “That was the most difficult scene for me to watch back in the edit. The whole time we were filming I was focused on getting it right, but watching it back was intense because it feels very much like what happened. That part of the shoot was incredibly challenging. I’ve been involved with a great organization called We Are Survivors in Manchester for quite a few years and they’ve been amazing. I had therapy from them and then I ended up painting their counseling space. I heard that there was a job going, so I actually work there now and support men who’ve been through sexual trauma or sexual violence and heard a lot of other people’s experiences too.”
“At one point there was a musical number in that scene, when Benji disassociates on the bed, but when we put that in it felt a bit jarring and too comedic. So we had to rework that. Lloyd and I talked about my experience and how when I disassociated a series of images came up. So we decided on something that represented that which Lloyd suggested and it worked perfectly. We also talked about what happens afterwards and how Lloyd’s character says, ‘I haven’t got the words to talk about what happened last night’. That’s a very common thing. It often takes up to 20 years for a man to process it and to be able to talk about it. Then when it comes to him going out to find sex straight afterwards, that is very common because it’s about taking control back. It’s a very personal film for both of us and we spent time really thinking it through. Hopefully it works and if people can talk about it afterwards then that’s great.”
What kind of work do you do with We Are Survivors?
Neil: “I work as part of the community development team. We develop different activities for men to do because a lot of men who come to us don’t necessarily immediately want to sit in a circle and talk. They’d rather go to boxing, or a coffee shop meet or play football. Then when they get to the counseling sessions they’ve already started to open up.”
The film also touches on struggles with body image, why was that something you wanted to address?
Lloyd: “I struggle with body image massively and so I think it just came into the film naturally. It is a part of me and how I feel, especially around gay culture. Even walking past a gay club there’s a picture of ripped guys with their muscles out. It feels like there is this expectation of what a gay man should look like and I don’t feel like I fit into the gay scene because of the way that I look. I struggle with it quite a lot so I wanted to put that in the film.”
“It’s not something that we’ve hammered home, it’s just there as part of my character. It came about organically on set from me having to take my top off and go into the water with all the crew there. I was terrified. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m literally going to strip down to my boxers and everyone’s going to see that I’m really fat. That’s how I felt, so we put it into the scene.”
Social media often doesn’t help when it comes to body image.
Neil: “Exactly. On Instagram it feels like every single man in existence has a six pack and perfect pecs whereas in reality there aren’t that many men who look like that but on social media you’re bombarded with those images. Then you start filtering photos. You find yourself having a photo taken and going to a bloody app that makes you look younger or fresher. You can become a bit obsessed with it.”
You mentioned that you’ve been working together for a while now, how did this collaboration first come about?
Lloyd: “We went out with each other 12 years ago.”
Neil: “It didn’t work out!”
Lloyd: “That’s another film! Then we went our separate ways and we both made short films that got into the Iris Prize festival. Neil and I were on the shortlist together and I won and Neil came second.”
Neil: “He loves telling this story!”
Lloyd: “We ended up splitting the prize money and joining forces to make a film together and we’ve been running around making films together ever since. We’ve built a really close network of brilliantly talented creatives in Manchester who want to make films on the weekends. Joe Nattrass, our sound designer, worked on my first film 15 years ago and then went on to be part of the Oscar-nominated team for Bohemian Rhapsody. He worked with us on Departures. Paul Mortlock, the producer and cinematographer, is doing amazing things too and he’s been working with us for nearly 10 years now.”
Neil: “Most of the cast and crew from Departures are working class people who have other jobs. For instance, I have a painting and decorating business and our first assistant director Jake Hayme and me would be working all week and then filming at the weekends. There’s that passion and drive to get something done. I don’t believe that it’s very easy in the UK to access any type of funding. The funding forms are completely baffling. So it’s a case of either spending a lot of time trying to understand those forms and how the funding system works, or just cracking on and making something. So we do the latter. It’s about that can-do, let’s get it made kind of attitude.”
So you only shot the film at the weekends?
Neil: “Yeah, over about nine months including casting and pre-production while we were working our regular jobs during the week. There were four people who worked on the film from the beginning and you could see towards the end that we were all getting slightly exhausted. I’d be up at two o’clock in the morning making a curry for the crew for the next day, after having worked all day painting ceilings, and then I’d have to get up at five o’clock.”
Were there any inspirations or influences that you drew on for the look or tone of the film?
Lloyd: “Roger Avary’s The Rules of Attraction, based on Bret Easton Ellis’ book. That massively influenced the film visually, especially the split screen sequences.”
What about breaking the fourth wall?
Neil: “I encouraged Lloyd to watch Shirley Valentine because I felt we could go down that route.”
Lloyd: “It was a bit of a joke when I first looked into the camera at the end of a scene. But then we looked at it and thought it was actually quite good so we were like, ‘Let’s do it!’ When I looked at the camera it always felt like we were having a laugh, but it works.”
Neil: “Shooting over nine months was a blessing and a curse because it does become exhausting when you’ve all got full time jobs to keep your gas and electricity on. But at the same time, it allows you to breathe and to reflect. It gives you the opportunity to change or add things if something isn’t working. Whereas if you make a feature over two or three weeks you don’t have the chance to do that.”
Lloyd: “We only had 12 days of filming spread over nine months, so I edited as we were filming and that meant we knew if we needed to reshoot something or add in a scene.”
Last question for you, what’s your favourite piece of LGBTQ+ culture, or a person who identifies as LGBTQ+; someone or something that’s had an impact on you over the years?
Lloyd: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s so queer and so camp. When I was growing up watching that was my therapy. It had LGBTQ characters in it at a time when other teen TV shows didn’t. It’s still my therapy now. If I’m ever down I’ll watch Buffy.”
Neil: “It has to be Madonna. She’s a gay icon. I love her whole story. Coming from a working class background and arriving in New York and being like, ‘I want to make something of myself’. Her allyship has always been very authentic and visible and vocal. In the 80s and 90s around the heights of the HIV/AIDS epidemic she did a lot of talking about how it doesn’t just affect gay men, it’s a disease that affects everybody. She was wiping sweat off people with AIDS in hospital years before Princess Diana did it.”
By James Kleinmann
Departures played BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival in March 2025. For release updates follow @DeparturesFilmUK on Instagram.
Leave a Reply