Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Filmed at the Sighthill Stone Circle, built in 1979, Glasgow
"Like slow breathing, it seemed to emanate from inside the walls" LUX Salon, Erik Martinson (2016)
"An Endless Theatre: the convergence of contemporary art and anthropology in observational cinema" University of Edinburgh (2013)

Tramway, Glasgow (2012).

Synopsis

Shrieve's House is considered to be one of the most haunted houses in the country. Includes a history of the property, interviews with people who have experiences of hauntings and sightings within the house, as well as footage from an overnight visit to the house and what happened next...

Synopsis

PINK: PAST & PRESENT is an award-winning feature length documentary film which explores the rich, vibrant and often turbulent history of Liverpool’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The film features authentic, personal and gripping stories from the 1950s to the present day.

Synopsis

Unravel follows women workers in textile factories who sort, shred and prepare clothes for recycling that come over from Western countries. They reflect on these clothes and construct a picture of the lives of the owners, using their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs.

Synopsis

On The Edge is a witty, surprising and ultimately feel good portrait of an isolated village of 59 people and 100 sledge dogs, surviving against the odds.

Synopsis

In Dreams is a profound and experimental documentary focusing on the weirdest and most vivid dreams of normal individuals. After numerous interviews, five of the most imaginative and outstanding interviews were selected for the documentary.

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On a normal day when millions are travelling underground; when punctuality and speed are everything; when there is noise, machines and artificial light, there is also time, idleness, silence and the human. An exploration of a nowadays rarely visible part of a machine: the people who run it.

Synopsis

Pensioners from across the planet compete in the over-80s World Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia. The film weaves a competition narrative with candid portraits of life back home that explore the hope, regret and immediacy of growing old.
8 players with 703 years between them guide us through the extraordinary world of Veteran sports. 81-year old Englishman Terry, recovering from life-threatening cancer, battles to retain his gold medal title. At 99, Australian legend Dorothy de Low creates a sensation as the oldest competitor at the Championships. German newcomer Inge, aged 89, has fought her way out of a dementia ward using the power of ping pong. This film is as much about the tenacity of the human spirit as it is a meditation on mortality.
Right now 1 in 6 people on the planet are over the age of 60. By 2030 that figure will be 1 in every 4. From the outset the film challenges perceptions of what it is to grow old. With humour and sensitivity it engages with the issues we all face in an ageing global population.

Synopsis

A sympathetic but searching portrait of Frank Ryan (1902-1944) IRA activist in Ireland, International Brigade Volunteer in Spain and Nazi collaborator in Berlin. Ryan enters a Faustian pact with a Nazi regime he believes will assist in forging a united Ireland. His collaboration is justified by the republican motto: "My enemy's enemy is my friend". But the former radical and internationalist pays a heavy price for this pact. The film raises important questions about collaboration between the IRA and the Nazis in World War II. It opens up a long suppressed debate about Irish neutrality in that war. Drawing upon Ryan’s correspondence and using a rich mix of period archive combined with live action - with a striking portrayal of Frank Ryan by Dara Devaney - the film makers tell a story of tragic proportions and probe the enigma that was Frank Ryan.

Synopsis

Berlin Golden Bear-winning director Peter Mackie Burns allows the audience access to the private lives of disparate groups of characters who reside in the city of Glasgow.

We are privy to their conversations, private moments and everyday occurrences in a piece that often makes for uncomfortable and even voyeuristic viewing.

Accompanied by the ambient music of Sigur Ros the city takes on a character of its own as we follow their lives from cradle to grave through an ever-changing landscape.

Come Closer is about change, the constant flux that happens to people and places, and how that change affects their relationships. Crossing boundaries of age, sex, class and religion, it causes the audience to reconsider the everyday in their own lives.

Synopsis

A documentary film about the extraordinary life of a famous, musical prodigy who has been battling against Lou Gehrig's Disease for 22 years. A paralyzing, terminal illness with no real treatment or cure, it has trapped Jason inside of his body for over 15 years; unable to move, unable to speak, and unable to play the instrument which propelled him to international stardom at just 19 years of age.
Using an eye communication system invented by his father, Jason is able to escape the confines of his own body and release the music that is trapped inside of his mind.

Synopsis

Rise Again focuses on a number of men who are asylum seekers from Afghanistan. Discovering and inhabiting the wood proximate to the asylum center in which they live, they step outside of their prescribed roles as refugees and engage in voluntary social activities within this oasis, surrounded by highways at the edge of town. By combining allegorical imagery with martial arts elements, played and documentary scenes, the video develops a narrative structure in which these men appear in enfolding transformation.