The Lost King is a Story of Our Fallen Sovereignty

Shireen Qudosi
8 min readJun 5, 2023

Not just a story of lost royalty, but of women who like hurricanes spinning across a landscape, are wildly searching for something long lost.

The Lost King

The themes of finding what is lost, seeing beyond tarnished reputations, following our heart’s calling, and walking away from what is normal or expected — all these themes were found in the film The Lost King, a comedic drama inspired by true events. The film is inspired by news headlines that read: “Mother of Two from Edinburg finds Lost King in Car park.”

Directed by Stephen Frears, the plot follows the real-life adventures of Philippa Langley, who in 2012 discovered the remains of Richard III, a controversial monarch in British history who is suspected to have been painted with more cruelty than what was true. Without giving away the plot, I was called to write about this film which at almost every step of the way ran a course parallel to the events in my own life over the last few years. There is a mystery, an adventure of sorts in the life of a woman who is an untrained historian who runs on “feelings” and is hindered by physical challenges. It’s a story with a happy ending of sorts as far as a happy ending is possible in British films. But more than that, it’s a story about finding the courage to search for what is most important to us, marked by the stirring we feel in the embodied…

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Shireen Qudosi
Shireen Qudosi

Written by Shireen Qudosi

I write on faith, identity, and belonging, focusing closely on the sacred feminine and cultivating intimacy with the profane.

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