Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Margaret Mellis’s career has encompassed some of the major movements of 20th Century British art. St. Ives neighbours Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo saw her talent and potential but history has relegated her to the sidelines.
 
A dedicated abstract painter and superb colourist Margaret produced a unique body of work during her later life in Suffolk. Her true legacy has yet to be fully realised.
 
Using recordings from Artists’ Lives (British Library Sound Archive) the film is told entirely in Margaret’s own words, with her writings and diary entries read by Susannah York.
 
Margaret Mellis a life in colour puts Margaret’s work centre place, a visual feast of texture, shape and colour.
 
Margaret Mellis 1914-2009

Synopsis

Michael Stern was injured at birth and is subsequently severely disabled. Despite his difficulties, and over fifty years of institutional care, Michael shines as a dignified and positive character.

Michael's brother provides an articulate and poignant backbone for Michael's story and investigating his state of happiness and quality of life.

Synopsis

Coming off the Robbie Williams tour, musical director eighties brit pop star Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy is fed up and completely disillusioned with the corporate music machine and decides to check out permanently and pursue his folk-political roots in the countryside.

Along the journey he reunites his critically acclaimed band The Lilac Time to play the Green Man Festival in Wales, and rediscovers what it was originally about. 'We used to do it for the love, didn't we. People have forgotten that.'

Duffy wanders as far as Cornwall before rediscovering meaningful poetic life. Sculptor Jon Edgar makes an appearance as he forms a terra cotta head of Duffy, who he believes will remain one of the key figures in arts and culture for future generations. It's a classic story of art versus commerce, disillusionment and rebirth told through one of the UK's most prolific recording artists, with archival super 8, stills, and historical footage from the 1960s through to the present. Much of the film is narrated by Duffy himself, the director Douglas Arrowsmith has poured over the archives and Duffy's own memoir to assemble an inspiring piece for any fan of music, poetry, and life's greater meaning.
 

Synopsis

Mickey B is a world first, a feature film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, made with serving prisoners as cast, in Northern Ireland's notorious maximum security prison, HMP Maghaberry.

Set in the fictional private prison of Burnam, where gangs run the wings, violence and drugs are the common currency.

Duncan, the number one drug dealer, is about to be released. Mickey B is the muscle collecting on his behalf.

The three witches take on the guise of three bookies, fixing the odds for their own ends. Ladyboy, Mickey B's bitch embodies the corrupting role of the queen of hate, scheming to reach the number one slot.

Shot in hand held close up with cold, razor-blue filters, an unrelenting claustrophobic intimacy draws us into this dark world of ashen, scarred faces and tattooed flesh. Casual everyday violence, bourn out of the prisoners’ first hand experiences, ensures gritty, authentic and visceral performances. The laconic, drawling voices snake the story through each unexpected shocking attack. The brutality of clipped street slang delivered at staccato pace punctuates the monotony of endless prison time. This is a Macbeth like no other.

Synopsis

An intimate and moving account of one family’s extraordinary courage in the face of overwhelming injustice and brutality

In 2008 Mike Campbell – one of the few remaining white farmers in Zimbabwe to have held fast in the face of the violent ‘Land Reform’ programme – took the unprecedented step of challenging President Robert Mugabe before the SADC International Court (SADC - South African Development Community) to defend his farm, which is also home to 500 black workers and their families, and to charge Mugabe and his government with racial discrimination and with violations of Human Rights.

This film, much of it shot covertly, follows the traumatic ordeal of Mike, his son in law Ben and their family as they take on a man who has brought death to thousands.
 

Synopsis

My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times' from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.

Synopsis

After ten years of correspondence, Michael Whyte was given unprecedented access to the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, in London’s Notting Hill. The monastery, which was founded in 1878, is home to the Discalced Order of Carmelite Nuns. The nuns lead a cloistered life dedicated to prayer and contemplation, rarely leaving the monastery except to visit a doctor or dentist. Silence is maintained throughout the day with the exception of two periods of recreation.

No Greater Love gives a unique insight into this closed world where the modern world’s materialism is rejected; they have no television, radio or newspapers. Though mainly an observational film there are several interviews, which offer insights into their life, faith, moments of doubt and their belief in the power of prayer in the heart of the community.

Synopsis

Nora is based on true stories of the dancer Nora Chipaumire, who was born in Zimbabwe in 1965. In the film, Nora returns to the landscape of her childhood and takes a journey through some vivid memories of her youth. Using performance and dance, she brings her history to life in a swiftly-moving poem of sound and image. The result is a film about family dramas, difficult love affairs and militant politics, which moves back and forth between the comic and the tragic, the joyful and the mournful. It is a film about a girl who is constantly embattled - struggling against all kinds of intimidation and violence - but who slowly gathers strength, pride and independence.

Shot entirely on location in Southern Africa, Nora includes a multitude of local performers and dancers of all ages, from young schoolchildren to ancient grandmothers, and much of the music is specially composed by a legend of Zimbabwean music - Thomas Mapfumo.

Synopsis

During the Spanish civil war and its aftermath, thousands of people were executed and thrown into mass unmarked graves. Today people in Spain are beginning to face up to a past that has remained for 70 years an uneasy alliance of a determination to forget. In Not Reconciled, historic accounts of the civil war, novels, diaries of republican and fascist fighters, are combined with observation of the everyday lives of the villagers.

The voices of the ghosts of Rosa and Carlos, young Spanish civil war republicans echo over the ruins of Belchite in Aragon, Northern Spain as they wait for the discovery of their unmarked graves. They tell the story of the town, talk about their part in the fighting, quarrel and make up, discuss philosophy and history and women’s rights and the terrible aftermath of the civil war. The sounds of wind, the echoes of voices, the crumbling ruins, the slow silent walks of tourists and the seeming oblivion of the present day town next door to those who lost their lives, are overlaid with conversations by the film maker with present day Belchite inhabitants as she tries to penetrate their indifference.

Synopsis

August 2008. Two homeless alcoholics meet on Brighton beach. A short film about friendship, creativity and alcohol.

Synopsis

A revealing portrait of contemporary China in the post Marxist era which explores the facets of Chinese socio-political life, by putting it in the context of globalisation and individualisation.

Personal stories unfold in an unexpected straightforwardness and with a striking sense of humour: an old peasant who has lost his land, a millionaire chatting with his mate in a stock exchange office, a young migrant who came to the city to wash cars, a weapon factory worker who wishes Mao was still alive, a successful hotel owner who praises the government’s liberal economy policies, and young kids whose dream is to become a famous western artist - all addressing contemporary issues that trespass borders and blur the socio-political lines into a globalised world of shared values and collective problems.

Synopsis

In the early afternoon of 8 June 1968, following a funeral mass in St Patrick's Cathedral, New York, the Kennedy family and their guests boarded a train at Penn Station to take the body of Robert F Kennedy, assassinated two days before, back to Washington to bury him next to his brother, John.

What had not been anticipated were the thousands of people who lined the route to pay their respects to the Senator and who were captured by the camera of Magnum photographer Paul Fusco, who was on the train.

One Thousand Pictures tells the story of that journey and of America at the time through some of the people who were there and in the pictures, which in turn provide an extraordinary portrait of 1960's America.