Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Following the sudden death of her husband, grief turns a widow to the spirit world and psychic mediumship. SEEKING delves into the world of grief and explores the lengths we will go to in order to process unspeakable loss.

Synopsis

A poor memory leads Gregor Petrikovi to make audio recordings of conversations with loved ones, friends, and acquaintances, and since 2016, he has been building an archive of anecdotes and recollections. With AI-generated visuals, SINCERELY, VICTOR PIKE combines these faceless voices in a patchwork to produce a collective memory around the semi-fictional figure Victor Pike. Official Selection International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2024

Synopsis

When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender essay film questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and land. Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 - World premiere Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2025 - International premiere Sundance Film Festival 2025 - Winner - Short Film Grand Jury Prize

Synopsis

The pace of technological progress in the physical world has stalled. WE MADE TELEPHONES converts mid-20th century propaganda and advertising into a personal, intergenerational exploration of how the ‘world of atoms’ fell apart—and how it might yet recover.

Synopsis

Bodies of water are intervened upon, moved, disrupted and exploited. Labouring bodies experience similar pressures from the same forces of power and extraction. Distant communities – Northern England and Jamaica – share similar histories of manipulation and oppression whose record is kept in the living memory of its waterways. But water, like people, can find a way to exert its own will. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2025 - World premiere

Synopsis

In the heart of Nepal, nestled amid majestic landscapes and ancient traditions, lies a profound tapestry of spiritual and religious practices. Nepal's history has been predominantly shaped by patriarchal traditions: the Sramana tradition of renunciates and the Brahmana tradition of priests. Yet, there exists a lesser-known matriarchal tradition. Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, meticulously planned by its founder Gunakamdev, features a unique constellation of eight Ajima temples on its peripheries. These temples, dedicated to the grandmother goddesses Ajima, serve as protectors of the city and hint at matriarchal ideals. Tantra, a spiritual path focusing on energy and liberation, adds another layer to Nepal's spiritual landscape. Unlike patriarchal traditions, Tantra celebrates women's sexuality, emphasizing mutual enjoyment and viewing the body as a sacred temple. Within this matriarchal framework, six genders are recognized, promoting a more inclusive understanding of human diversity. Kathmandu's labyrinth of temples, structures, and symbols offers glimpses into a bygone era when wise women possibly ruled and protected society, and when Tantra and other spiritual practices flourished. However, invading patriarchal forces have rewritten Nepal's history, obscuring its rich and diverse spiritual heritage, leaving many unaware of their profound legacy.

Synopsis

Plunging us into the ever-accelerating rhythm of food supply and the emergence of new techno-capitalist processes, BLISS POINT looks at the entanglement of automation and human labour, from dark kitchens and food advertising sets to AI-managed warehouses. Official Selection Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

Friends, colleagues and strangers compare notes on their journeys with hormonal birth control - and its indelible effects on their mental health.

Synopsis

During the Blitz of World War Two, 10-year-old Harry Hawkesworth roller skates through Gloucestershire delivering messages for the Air Raid Patrol, while Italian prisoners of war work the local fields. MARMALADE tells the story of Harry Hawkesworth’s experience during the Second World War, as a 10-year-old messenger boy for his local Air Raid Patrol. Now 95 years old, Harry is interviewed by his grandson, photographer Jamie Hawkesworth, for his debut film. He mentions biscuits, marmalade, and recollects the Italian prisoners of war he met who worked the land in his hometown of Tuffly, Gloucestershire. The film gracefully weaves the past and present together through Jarvis Cocker’s mesmerising score.

Synopsis

A work of speculative cinematic writing, the film is about war and displacement, architecture and place-making. It tells the fragmented biography of the so-called Rock Church, an iconic building in Helsinki and its architects who were excluded from the canon of Finnish modernism. The architects' personal history of displacement due to the Finnish Winter War of 1939 and Soviet occupation is braided with the war on present-day Gaza. Past and present histories, temporalities and geographies fold into, and over one another collapsing time, place and identities narratively to consider, in the gentlest of tones, the impact of atrocities on contemporary lifeworlds.

Synopsis

Divided by barriers and borders, the three sisters confront their childhood after spending decades apart in culturally and politically diverging countries. For all of them, one moment in life determined everything that followed. An emotionally revealing essay film.

Synopsis

A creative biography of the Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life. In May 1949, this leading representative of the modernist St. Ives group of artists climbed to the top of the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland, an experience which was to transform the way she saw the world. She spent the rest of her life capturing its shapes and colours, indeed its very essence. In his essayistic portrait Cousins delves into complex themes of gender, climate change and creativity, while laying bare the artist’s character and vast imagination so pervasively that he creates the impression we are seeing the world through her eyes. Official Selection Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2024 - World premiere Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024