Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

In the late '80s and early '90s, daredevil entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson made an audacious attempt to cross the Atlantic and Pacific in the world's largest hot air balloon. This film is a personal revelation; a dramatic tale of survival and drive. Branson recounts his experience with uncanny vividity, and reveals how baiting death forever changed him. Tribeca Film Festival 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

Passionate in his anti-Semitic beliefs, Csanád Szegedi was the rising star of Hungary's far-right party until he discovered his family's secret - his maternal grandparents were Jewish. The revelation prompts an improbable but seemingly heartfelt conversion from anti-Semite to Orthodox Jew. This confrontational film explores the complex and contradictory character of Szegedi, prompting deep questions about Szegedi's supposed epiphany. Tribeca Film Festival 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

March 2004. The artist known as Banksy illegally erects a ten-foot statue in a small square off Shaftsbury Avenue in central London. Titled 'The Drinker', this sculpture is a replica of Rodin's 'The Thinker' - with a traffic cone placed on its head. The only clue as to who put it there is a stencil on the plinth that merely says 'Banksy'. Then, one day, in broad daylight, masked thieves pull up with a flatbed truck and cart 'The Drinker' away - a reporter from a national newspaper receives a ransom note from a man calling himself AK47, claiming to represent a group of 'art terrorists' calling themselves 'ART KEIDA'. After several years back and forth between the media, Banksy and Art Keida, it is alleged that the artist called Banksy 'arranged' for the statue to be destroyed by any means necessary... Now, after all this time, it seems that AK47 is about to breathe new life into the saga. Tribeca Film Festival 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

A biographical documentary about the remarkable and turbulent career of British film and TV director Antonia Bird - the first British woman to direct a Hollywood movie, who died in 2013. The film explores her battles to break down the barriers against her gender and her politics, to get her voice heard, and to bring a radical edge to popular drama. It reveals the secrets of her greatest work - Safe, Priest, Face, Ravenous, Care, The Hamburg Cell - through the testimony of her closest friends and collaborators, including Robert Carlyle, Mark Cousins, Kate Hardie, Irvine Welsh and Steven Mackintosh.

Synopsis

An original and compelling documentary depicting one father’s long-term struggle with heroin addiction, told through the uniquely intimate perspective of his own son. After years of acrimony and estrangement, young film-maker Phillip Wood seeks out his father to try and understand what’s happened to him. But his father is now seriously ill and over the next few months Phillip’s visits force both to confront some uncomfortable truths about their past. This documentary offers a strikingly stark exploration into a subject that significantly affected the film-maker's childhood. An intimate, revealing documentary which shows addiction from a different side and challenges assumptions about how families can rebuild their broken relationships.

Synopsis

A ‘pop-u-mentary’ following award-winning performance artist Bryony Kimmings and her 10-year old niece Taylor as they try to combat the hyper-sexualised and commercialised world of pop by creating their very own alternative popstar role model for Tweens (7 – 12 year old girls). They launch their creation into the world and measure her impact against a series of ‘Fame Aims’, including one million hits on YouTube and national radio play for one of her songs. Bryony and Taylor’s adventure sees them perform to thousands of children, garner national media attention, and takes them to the other side of the world and back. But the impact it has closer to home is perhaps the most powerful of all. This feature-length documentary is an upbeat and inspirational film for anyone who cares about the impact of the media we consume.

Synopsis

The extraordinary life and career of underground DJ icon, music producer, and global trip hop mogul, James Lavelle. The story of one teenager’s ambition to passionately pursue creating quality music at any cost, and the friendships, fall outs, successes and failures that come with it. Spanning three decades, with exclusive access to personal home footage, this is a rare opportunity to watch a boy become a man in the world of music. Witnessing him experience a whirlwind journey of personal and professional highs and lows, from the rapid rise of his record label Mo'Wax, to becoming a millionaire by the age of 21 and forming the super band UNKLE, with DJ Shadow. A profile of one man's constant battle between art and commerce and how to survive as he continually strives for more. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Sonic Strand

Synopsis

At the end of the 1970s, Gary Numan found himself to be one of the world’s biggest-selling recording artists, 'Are ‘Friends’ Electric?' and 'Cars' were huge hits, no one had heard, or seen, anyone like Gary Numan. The Asperger’s syndrome that helped forge Numan's tunnel-like ambition, informing his music and image, also brought problems. At a time when the public knew little about the condition, the press labeled him a freak, one paper suggested his parents should have been doctored for giving birth to him. Depression, anxiety, near bankruptcy and a long period in the wilderness followed. Then Numan fell in love with his biggest fan, Gemma, who helped him rediscover his passion for music. (SXSW Film Festival brochure) SXSW Film Festival 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

A homage to the spontaneous prose of The Beats, from the mythical Cornish west. An audio-visual stream of consciousness. Entirely un-edited, in terms of writing, performance and visuals.

Synopsis

'Hannibal in Rafah: A Reconstruction of One Bloody Day in the 2014 Gaza War from User Generated Videos' A detailed reconstruction of the events on one day in Rafah, Gaza during the 'Hannibal Directive', drawing on material produced by the Forensic Architecture project. The project stemmed from an examination of the Israeli army’s response to the capture of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin and its implementation of the Hannibal Directive – a controversial command designed to deal with captures of soldiers by unleashing massive firepower on persons, vehicles and buildings in the vicinity of the attack, despite the risk to civilians and the captured soldier(s). "Because our investigation team was denied access to Gaza, Forensic Architecture developed a number of techniques aiming to reconstruct the events from hundreds of images and videos recorded by professional and citizen-journalists. The images were thereafter located in a 3D model of Rafah. This resulted to the Image Complex, a device that allowed us to explore the spatial and temporal connections between the various sources and reconstruct the unfolding of events. Forensic Architecture... also located witness testimonies, delivered after the war, within this 3D model, and corroborated the reported events with other audio-visual material." The resulting report was presented as a Human Rights case by Amnesty International. 'Hannibal in Rafah: A Reconstruction of One Bloody Day in the 2014 Gaza War from User Generated Video' is a selection of clips taken from the project, composed and brought together in a text presentation. Official Selection Berlinale 2016 - Forum Expanded - Visionary Archives

Synopsis

"The four essay films which comprise ‘The Seasons in Quincy’ each take different aspects of British writer and thinker John Berger’s life in the Haute-Savoie, and combine ideas and motifs from Berger’s own work with the atmosphere of his mountain home. Each film was created as an individual work of art but they combine to make a feature film... showing how film can move beyond text, and beyond fine art, to offer a multifaceted and multi-layered portrait. These are more than documentary films – they are exercises in thinking in film." Derek Jarman Lab 'Ways of Listening', (Colin MacCabe), deals with fathers and friendship. 'Spring', (Christopher Roth), considers Berger's writing on our relationship with animals. 'A Song for Politics', (Colin MacCabe and Bartek Dziadosz), reflects on politics through archive footage, song and a discussion between Berger and several young left-wing thinkers. 'Harvest', (Tilda Swinton), revisits Quincy to meditate on belonging and continuity with Berger and his son Yves. Berlinale 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

Artist Jumana Manna sets out in search of the musical diversity of historical Palestine. Drawing on her research into the German-Jewish ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (1892-1939) and his work in Palestine, the film follows Manna’s exchanges with musicians as she encounters them in their homes and places of work and worship. Berlinale 2016 - World premiere