Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Working with their team at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, Anya Neistat, a brilliant war crimes investigator, joins forces with Solomiia Stasiv, a young Ukrainian woman just entering the field. Together they document atrocities in the fight to bring Russian generals to trial and justice to the Ukrainian people. Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2024 - World premiere

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As the Palestinian identity continues to be threatened with erasure, Palestinians turn to their folk dance, the dabke, to assert their existence. Ultimately, they dance because they love life, and insist on living it. Official Selection Leuven International Short Film Festival 2024

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Exploring the themes of migration, forced displacement and the removal of children. Intersecting a variety of personal testimonies expressed through music, interviews and poetry, these multi-layered responses reflect on the issues surrounding the complexities of both the historical and more recent UK immigration laws.

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Impersonating the style of an NHS training films from 1960s-70s and shot on 16mm, the film is an exercise in queering the healthcare information film. Using a collated archive of healthcare experiences recorded with Birmingham's trans+ community the film explores the critical state of trans healthcare in the UK through ‘medical drag’ re-enactments.

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A son is coming home and his mother is cooking his favourite meal. A short film about food, memory and loss. Official Selection Hamburg International Short Film Festival 2024

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A day in the life of Claire. FARM DAYS is a heartfelt glimpse into the world of a farm manager and her twelve alpacas as they engage in feeding, trekking, and community volunteering in the woods of Sheffield, UK.

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At 80 years old, Libby Houston still scales the 300-foot cliffs of Bristol's Avon Gorge to investigate rare plants. But as it stands, there's only one known member of her namesake discovery - Houston’s Whitebeam - and reflecting on its inevitable extinction prompts Libby to contemplate her own legacy. Through tragic loss and discovery, this is the story of her life’s entanglement with the environment.

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Gaza, December 2023. A confrontation with a disturbing photograph on social media triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker.

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In the early hours of 6 February 2023, a Mw 7.8 earthquake hit a large area of Turkey and Syria. It’s destructiveness was exacerbated by the instability that had torn the region apart. Waad Al-Kateab’s film is powerful record of the disaster, drawing images from TV news reports, social media, CCTV and drone footage, alongside archive material of the region. The shock of the earthquake soon gives way to a damning record of human failure, with Al-Kateab focusing on two Syrian families over the course of ten days, sensitively recording their desperate efforts to find their loved ones. Highlighting official incompetence and a paltry level of humanitarian aid, Death Without Mercy is, above all else, a moving testament to human dignity. (Sheffield DocFest 2024 Programme) Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2024

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Part road trip, part coming-of-middle-age tale, director Duncan Cowles’ laconic humour and frank approach to his subject proves effective in exploring aspects of masculinity that all too often are little discussed. Admitting that he is not always open and intimate in his conversations with loved ones, the BAFTA-winning Scottish filmmaker sets out to define masculinity in the modern age – what makes men tick and, more importantly, coming to terms with all aspects of health, both physical and mental. The questions asked in Silent Men may seem simple, but their answers betray underlying tensions, as Cowles’ subjects make all too clear. The film grapples with being able to express oneself as a man – to become someone at peace with themselves, their life and the ones they love. (Sheffield DocFest Programme) Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2024 - Special Mention Grand Jury Award for the International First Feature Competition - World premiere

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Existing between the domains of architectural, technological and spiritual mediums, ‘spaces as traces’ features found footage, director Teo Shi Yun’s body of archival material concerns with Singapore’s architecture and Taoist religious rituals, as well as three-dimensional rendered animation of deities in an imagined science fiction of Chinese mythology. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2025 - World premiere

Synopsis

When artist Sergei Ivanov moves with his partner Tszman Chan to the remote Scottish island of Papa Westray, they start an International Arts Festival, bringing an eclectic mix of artists, performers and musicians to the island from as far afield as Japan and Norway. With the festival entering its seventh year they invite their friend, filmmaker David Kew to make a documentary about their extraordinary life on the island. But when Sergei suddenly disappears without trace on Papa Westray three months into filming, the filmmaker is forced to embark on a profound journey of discovery and contemplation. As the filmmaker interviews those left behind, each in their own way trying to make sense of Sergei’s vanishing, the film gravitates towards Tszman as she attempts to come to terms with her grief by creating an elegiac and moving tribute to Sergei on the island. Shot over several years, THE ARTIST WHO DISAPPEARED includes profoundly moving scenes with Tszman and their daughter Snaedis in the wake of Sergei’s disappearance, interviews with islanders, artists and close family members. THE ARTIST WHO DISAPPEARED goes to the very heart of what it means to be an artist, how we judge success and failure, and the nature of loss.