Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Following comedian/author/activist Russell Brand as he dives headlong into drugs, sex and fame in an attempt to find happiness, only to realize we have all been nurtured on bad ideas and empty celebrity idols. Brand leaves Los Angeles to embark on a stand-up comedy tour about his own true icons - Gandhi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ - and transforms from addict and Hollywood star into an unexpected political disruptor and new found hero to the undeserved. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Gala Screening

Synopsis

Hollywood relies on Bruce Willis to save the world in Armageddon, but who are the real-life heroes seeking to save our civilization from the next major asteroid impact? Disaster Playground investigates future outer space catastrophes and the procedures to manage and assess the risks. The film follows the scientists planning the monitoring and deflection of hazardous Near Earth Objects and the real-life procedures in place in the event of an asteroid collision with the earth. Follow the chain of command that runs from the SETI Institute and NASA to the White House and United Nations and meet the people who are responsible from protecting us from a potentially devastating asteroid impact. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, co-commissioned through Broadway’s Near Now programme. SXSW 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

'The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson' confronts our worst nightmares of impending death and turns them upside down. It tells the extraordinary, yet universal story of legendary musician Wilko Johnson who, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given a few months to live, accepted his fate with uplifting positivity and embarked on a farewell tour, capturing the imagination of the world as he went. But like every good story Wilko's has a damn fine twist in its tail. Two years later and confounding the odds, Wilko wakes up in a hospital bed, unexpectedly sentenced to live, having now to integrate those enlightened lessons learnt under sentence of death into the unexpected and ongoing future of his life. SXSW 2015 - World premiere

Synopsis

"In 2012, 23 year-old Jyoti Singh had her whole life in front of her. A promising medical student and the apple of her adoring parents' eyes, she was months shy of completing her studies. But after attending an evening screening of 'Life of Pi' with a male friend, she met a terrible fate on a moving Delhi van, gang raped and brutalised by a number of strangers. By the time of her death a few days later, she had become a national symbol, and the focus of mass protests the length of India against an endemic rape culture and the ongoing subjugation of women. Director Leslee Udwin speaks to an impressive array of interviewees, from the accused rapists, awaiting their fate on death row, to Singh's parents and the defence team, whose shocking attitudes women are barely decipherable from the rapists they so staunchly defend." Sheffield Doc/Fest

Synopsis

This documentary follows three Newtown families as they rebuild their lives after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Over a year, we follow families of victims, and survivors. Some are taking the lead in community healing, others advocate for a change in gun laws; all are seeking healing. In their journey, some venture out of their ‘safe’ suburban community with new eyes:- engaging with black urban America; youth from all walks of life coming together to make change; gun proponents; prisoners incarcerated for violent crimes. This film shows the audience how even amidst such a horrific event, people find a way to survive, and brings a unique perspective to the ongoing gun debate. A film about grief, hope, love and guns.

Synopsis

In the summer of 1990, a teenage filmmaker successfully raises $100,000 to shoot a pioneering horror film. 25 years later, he tells the story of a cult classic that never was. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Cult Strand

Synopsis

Better known by his pseudonym Araucaria, John Graham set The Guardian crossword for 55 years. In December 2012, crossword number 25,842 appeared in the paper with a series of clues revealing a personal message to his followers. 'Dear Araucaria' unpicks the crossword to journey into John’s world of clue-making.

Synopsis

Out of the darkness a sound emerges. Terrified people take to the streets in search of its source. They get their cameras out, documenting the sky. We watch on, our muscles contract and our pupils dilate. This film piece explores the circulation, spectatorship and undeclared politics of contemporary networked images.

Synopsis

A film centred upon the dramatic and volatile landscape of Iceland; interfusing the cultural, political and ecological forces that shape the island. The film combines Iceland's remarkable terrain with two corresponding voice-overs from the past and present: poet W.H. Auden, reading ‘Journey to Iceland’ (1937), and environmental activist Ómar Ragnarsson.

Synopsis

Collector Paul Wells, who over many years has amassed one of the best private collections held on the subject of death.

Synopsis

’Unseen: The Lives of Looking’ focuses on four individuals with a distinct relationship to looking - an eye surgeon, a planetary explorer, a human rights lawyer and an artist/filmmaker. Told through Dryden Goodwin’s closely observed drawings, camera work and multilayered soundtrack, it explores different scales, forms and reasons for looking, in a poetic and metaphysically charged journey. Revealing the empathy and dexterity of an eye surgeon, working with the fragile human eye; the quest of a NASA planetary explorer to decode the cosmos and find evidence of life on Mars; and the scrutiny of the British government, by a human rights lawyer, in extraordinary rendition, drone attack and mass surveillance cases. The film’s perspectives range from minute details to panoramic expanses, building an atmospheric and sensual matrix around its subjects. Goodwin includes fleeting vignettes of strangers and a brief focus on his father and son, highlighting the tension in his work between intimacy and anonymity. The film considers both the physical act of looking and how we perceive the world around us: how we contemplate the known and the unknown, the personal and the remote and the imaginative leaps taken to reveal what might be concealed or out of sight.

Synopsis

On February 15th, 2003, over 15 million people marched through the streets of 800 cities on every continent to voice their opposition to the proposed war in Iraq. We Are Many tells for the first time the remarkable story of the biggest protest in history, and how it changed the world. Executive Produced by Pippa Harris (Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Things We Lost In The Fire ), BAFTA winning & Oscar-nominated producer Signe Sorenson (The Act of Killing), and Omid Djalili (The Infidel, Gladiator, The Mummy) , WE ARE MANY is the debut feature film of acclaimed documentary maker Amir Amirani. Filmed over nine years across seven countries, and including interviews with John Le Carre, Damon Albarn, Brian Eno, Danny Glover, Mark Rylance, Richard Branson and Hans Blix amongst others, it charts the birth and rise of the people power movements that are now sweeping the world, all through the prism of one extraordinary day.