Nadav Lapid’s latest film, which had its premiere at the Cannes Festival Critics’ Week and won the International Competition Grand Prize at Curtas 2016, is a tragicomic take on one of the most important celebrations in Western culture: the wedding day. Focussing on the character of the wedding photographer (a role Lapid himself played in real life), “From the Diary of a Wedding Photographer” offers a disenchanted view of a major ritual in the traditional path through life. For Lapid, and for his leading character, there is almost a sense of desperation in the couples seeking to institutionalise love, even when their relationship only amounts to a mindless passion based on cultural constructs and demands rather than any true affinity between two people. The supposedly idyllic beach setting becomes the arena for an ongoing dispute that eventually culminates in violence. For this sceptical photographer, there are no happy loves. (DR)