What made more money than the entire American movie industry through the 50s and 60s? Pinball.
Special When Lit rediscovers the lure of a lost pop icon. A product of the mechanical and electrical age, the American invention swept the world and defined cool.
Now it is relegated to a nostaglic footnote deserving a better fate. This feature length documentary joins the fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe who share a world many of us didn’t know still existed.
A family of six sits down for a microwave meal. They communicate using technology but one of them is determined for a return to a traditional supper; good food and real conversation.
SSDD: Same Sh*t Different Day is a slice of life in the east end of London following Lee (Samuel Anokye), recently released from prison, and Phil (Richard Oldham), a squatter and former rioter, who both work night shift together.
Retaining both a social realist approach and a comedy delivery, the film is set to the backdrop of the recession in contemporary Britain, executed on a shoestring budget and marking a mature step forward for critically acclaimed auteur Greg Hall (The Plague, Kapital).
Stanley never goes outside. He likes to play with his clockwork toys and every night his mother kisses him goodnight.
Stanley is twenty.
The trouble is that Stanley thinks this is all quite normal, until an encounter with a mysterious girl turns his world upside down.
Star Games is a visual narrative of a surreal galactic ballet that explains the origins of stars. The inhabitants of a futuristic metropolis train in their hundreds to contest in the Star Games. Patrolling zeppelins select individual gymnasts with a UFO-styled light beam. The gymnasts are pulled up towards the sky to perform a beautifully organic ballet before they dissolve into starlights.
The film’s emotive meaning is that each star symbolizes a past human life. Its message is that human beings are never alone but embedded, just like stars, in a community of others celebrating life with each other.
This is entertaining and controversial film about something that fascinates us all - even if some of us are loath to admit it – Fame. This film explores the psychological reasons behind the unstoppable rise of the power of celebrity, the media’s need to capitalise on it, and reveals its impact on the world as we know it.
Celebrity has reached into every corner of our world. It has come to dominate the media and many of the choices that we make in our lives. We are watching a generation of children growing up captivated by the world of celebrity and the desire for fame, and this documentary asks the question of what the consequence of that may be.
In this film it is the stars who are the extras, we glimpse Jude Law and Mick Jagger, but it is the faces in the crowd whose stories we follow, the focus being on the ordinary people who have been swept up in the celebrity machine and the deep psychological reasons behind their obsession. Crucially, the film examines how the media is enhancing the spell of celebrity, and it explains how vast media corporations are profiting from manipulating our inescapable human instincts.
Storage is the story of an autistic 19-year-old and the relationship with his father.
Jason is isolated by his autism; his father loves him but is unable to break through Jason's defences to communicate this or anything else.
Jason, meanwhile, boxes up everyday objects each box representing certain experiences he needs to control. When items suddenly go missing from the storage boxes, Jason's autistic world is forced to rub up against a more alien one, ours.
On a winter's night in 1980, American servicemen stationed at an RAF base, witnessed some 'unexplained lights' in Rendlesham Forest. The incident has since become Britain's most famous UFO mystery with abounding rumours of conspiracies and cover-ups. Some argue that the incident was a hoax whilst others believe that the forest is a doorway to another dimension.
Maintaining a balance between celebration and criticality, this film revisits the forest, thirty years later, in search of similarly 'inexplicable' events.
Sparks fly as the worlds of street-dance and ballet collide in Streetdance - the vibrant, uplifting and ground-breaking 3D feature film from award-winning music video directors Max and Dania, Vertigo Films and BBC Films.
While training for the UK Streetdance Championships, a streetdance crew are forced to work with Royal ballet dancers in return for rehearsal space. With no common ground and with passions riding high, they realise they need to find a way to join forces to win.
Mavis, an eccentric 100 year old woman is fed up with living so long. Traveling to visit her 99 year old brother Bill, who lives in a care home, she contemplates her future, revealing issues we all inevitably face.
After having his car stolen and being kidnapped, Pedro, a lonely salesperson, tries a new life at the seaside in the south of Brazil. There he meets Celia, a teenager who is looking for a job. They begin a emotional relationship that suddenly ends when Celia becomes victim of prostitution and human traffic.
