Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

'Lanzmann' explores the arduous 12-year journey that led to the creation of one of the most important films of our time, 'Shoah'.
Completed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the release of 'Shoah' – Claude Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half-hour examination of the Holocaust of European Jews, this documentary reveals for the first time the trials and tribulations the French iconoclast director faced. Notably, the film features an array of previously unseen outtake footage that was shot during the creation of 'Shoah', to illustrate Lanzmann’s journey from the bright-eyed journalist of 1973 to the world-weary auteur of 1985.
Hot Docs 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

Parents and health care workers are caught in the cross-hairs of violence and politics as they attempt to protect their children from Polio in Pakistan. Once on the brink of eradication, the disease has again become a global threat - with Pakistan at its epicenter. Will these everyday heroes succeed and end Polio in our lifetime, or will another young generation be at risk?

Synopsis

Workers of the size of ants next to the ships they are dismantling risk their life to scrap a living.

Synopsis

Following the death of his grandfather, poet Ross Sutherland discovered an old videotape in his loft. On the tape were all the things they'd watched together: one-and-a-half films, a quiz show segment, and two sitcoms. Somehow they became the story of his life.

Inspired by the 1980s stoner mainstay of matching up 'The Wizard of Oz' with Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon, Ross draws out a series of stories from his life, synchronising them with the images on the tape. In the process, fragments of old films and TV shows are looped, destroyed, and re-built into an audiovisual meditation on memory, death and re-runs.

Hot Docs International Film Festival 2015 - World Premiere
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015 - UK Premiere

Synopsis

A compelling portrait of loyalty, broken dreams and redemption told by its director, reluctantly-dutiful daughter Karen, who takes you under the skin of the deceptively humdrum household she returns to for this long goodbye.

Karen’s mother Ann suffers a devastating stroke that brings her daughter back home. But Karen isn’t the only one who comes back to help care for Ann in the crisis: Her prodigal father - the endearing yet unfathomable Ian, who’s been separated from Ann for years - also reappears.
Reunited so unexpectedly, and armed with her camera, Karen seizes this last chance to go under the skin of the family story before it’s too late, to come to terms with the aftermath of the secret her father had tried - and failed - to keep from them all: a relationship and a son, Campbell, born in Ethiopia and now in Scotland.
With candour, warmth and much unexpected humour, Karen’s role as family confidante, busybody, therapist and spy brings to life both an extraordinary story and a profound portrait of family survival.
Hot Docs 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

In 2012, jihadists took control of northern Mali. They imposed one of the strictest interpretations of sharia law in history. On 22 August they banned music – radio stations destroyed, instruments burned and Mali’s musicians faced torture, even death. This film follows Mali’s musicians as they fight to keep music alive in their country. Through personal stories we draw the audience into the human side of this ongoing conflict and ask the burning question: what does the future hold for Mali? The film culminates with the first public concert in Timbuktu post jihadist takeover and music ban.

Synopsis

A convicted criminal returns home to nurse his father, bringing a dangerous mix of troubled past and big ambition into the lives of those that love him. Set in a remote, church-going village in the Scottish Highlands, the film follows the redeeming relationships Uisdean builds with his father and lover - both drawn to the 'new start' Uisdean promises to bring.
Visions du Réel Festival 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

Millions of Americans clung to the hope that Elvis Presley faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. But who was the man behind the mask? Jimmy Ellis, a singer was plucked from obscurity in 1978 and given a fictional identity, signed to Sun Records and thrust into the spotlight as part of the crazy scheme that had him masquerade as Elvis back from the grave. With an outlandish fictional identity torn from the pages of a pulp novel, the backing of the legendary birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll, Sun Records, and a voice that seemed to be the very twin of Presley’s himself, the scheme – concocted in the months after Presley’s death, exploded into a cult success – and the “Elvis is alive” myth began.
This is the story behind that story. Who was that masked man?
Tribeca Film Festival 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

The Palio horserace in Siena isn't a matter of life or death... It's much more important than that. Twice a year the Italian city of Siena goes crazy for the oldest horse race in the world: the Palio. Not your average race: strategy, bribery and corruption play as much a part as the skill of the riders.
'Palio' explores the thrilling story of a rivalry between a young ‘outsider' keen to break in to a dangerous but lucrative game and the corrupt 'insider' who has manipulated the city of Siena for a decade. Their passionate and dramatic battle is an epic and cinematic tale of Italian life in microcosm.
Tribeca Film Festival 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

"Belfast, it’s a city that is changing, changing because the people are leaving? But one came back, a 10,000 year old woman who claims that she is the city itself." Mark Cousins.
A unique film about an infamous place, with this 10,000 year old woman as our free spirited walking tour guide. Starting in the here and now, with the everyday, we move on to the dream life of the city, mapping the voices of women and the liminal spaces, the unnoticed and the unloved things about this place. But she also looks back and she sees the tragedy and the horror of what went before. She remembers everything… 'I Am Belfast' highlights Mark Cousins’ influences, inherently cinematic, but all the while underscored by the influence of the grandparents, the mothers, the brothers and the women of the city he comes from.
Belfast Film Festival 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

A behind-the-scenes look at Mary J. Blige recording her 13th studio album in London. The film chronicles the singer's creative process as she writes, records and curates one of her most experimental albums to date. Teaming up with some of the most successful British singer/songwriters including Sam Smith, Disclosure and Emeli Sande (all of whom appear in the documentary), Mary J. Blige – The London Sessions offers unparalleled access to one of the worlds most successful singers.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

Can you imagine what it means to grow up as the child of a mass murderer? While studying the Nuremberg trials, a lawyer becomes fascinated with two men: both sons of famous Nazi Governors, and both with polar opposite views of their fathers’ hand in the war. A forthright dive into individual perception, 'My Nazi Legacy' adds new meaning to the ties that bind us.