Jasper, a high school student, has gone missing. Among those searching for him is his teacher, Barry. As Barry scrambles to cover his tracks and hide his secret relationship with Jasper, sightings of Barry begin circulating throughout the school and beyond. Caught between his professional responsibility as a teacher and his instinct for self preservation, Barry loses his bearings and his worst instincts start to come out. A lesson Barry gives on reevaluating the familiar image of seeing yourself in the mirror compared to how others see you resonates eerily with his own predicament. The film sustains its suspense between truths that keep leaking out and Jasper’s still-unknown whereabouts, forgoing a tidy resolution of the case - relentlessly probing the psychology of a character forced to live with the fallout of a secret he continues to conceal. This is the feature debut of Rhys Marc Jones, who has drawn attention for short films probing the complexities of identity and acceptance.
Rhys Marc Jones is a Welsh-Irish filmmaker who earned an MFA in screenwriting and directing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His short films have been invited to leading film festivals, and he has participated in Cannes’ Cinéfondation as well as Berlinale Talents. Black Church Bay is his feature directorial debut.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
