Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

The documentary, "Cartografía de la soledad" (Cartography of Loneliness), is akin to a map tracing the emotions and feelings of women who find themselves totally alone on losing their husbands in three countries, India, Nepal and Afghanistan. The choice of these three countries which are so near each other and have significant ethnic and religious differences is not by chance. India is the country with the most widows in the world, totalling over 45 million. In Nepal, half of the female population is widowed or have been abandoned by their husbands: they are called "child widows" or baikaylas. Afghanistan has the highest proportion of widows in the world after 30 years of war. Tradition, society and religion have determined the course of their lives following their husbands' deaths. Many widows are abandoned by their families, or victim of women trafficking, or condemned to social ostracism. War, AIDS and child marriages are the main factors behind these figures. After living with them for 4 months, there have been impressive stories in a very determined historical, social and religious context, and also the medicine, human rights and education are intertwined in their lives.

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Day Will Fall follows the fragmented psycho-odyssey of a Soho Debt Collector, whose past, present and future congeal offering a brief moment for redemption.

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This is a docudrama about 5 survivors of Mental Health problems It tells the true stories of these people as they struggle to stand up for human rights and choose the treatment best for their wellbeing. The film aims to spread the word about how people can recover from Mental Health problems and support Recovery's campaign to allow survivors to have control and capacity over how they are treated.

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New York, London, Monroe is a memory piece reflecting the souls unrequited love for a place, or a life, it has never consciously visited. A Future Archive is projected, drawn from the Artist's past works.

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Sack Barrow explores a small family run factory in the outskirts of London.The film observes the environment and daily routines of the final month of the six workers. Years of miniature chemical and mineral processes transform the space into another world.

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In this evocative and unique experimental documentary, award winning filmmaker Jill Daniels explores her memories of violence 30 years ago hitchhiking through the Basque country. She searches for the places she hopes will jolt her fading memory. Merging past and present, documentary and fiction she recreates her journey. Diving further into this world she discovers other women, Maria and Aitziber, also changed by violence. Maria is a photographer who lives alone and has survived a car crash but her niece was killed. Her dead father was sentenced to death in the civil war in Spain and she holds close his prison diary. Aitziber is a young Basque nationalist who spent five years in prison and for five days after her arrest was tortured by the Spanish police. Together these stories, build a mosaic of impressions of the past and present. As Daniels comes to the end of her journey she realizes she can't be free of the past. She has come full circle.

Synopsis

A Man's Story profiles Ozwald Boateng, his design, his business, his personal life. Charismatic, glamorous, hard-working and very humanly flawed, Boateng's personal and professional triumphs and set-backs are the fascinating heart of this film which is set against a back-drop of models, movie stars and fabulous locations. As a black and heterosexual man Boateng breaks the stereotypes of the fashion industry. He is his own original. A Man's Story has been filmed by director Varon Bonicos since 1998.

Synopsis

Champion roller skater, cyclist and swimmer: Ralph Settle refuses to let old age get the better of him. Now 88 and a widower, everyone on the streets of Cornwall knows him by sight as “The Banjo Man”.

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Taking its name from an alternative reading of the name for the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kannon, KanZeOn, which can be translated as "she who hears the cries of the world", is an unorthodox but utterly magical meditation on sound and the ritual and philosophical role it plays in Japanese Buddhism. Filmed in Kyushu, the film looks at, and more importantly listens to, three very special Japanese musicans: Akinobu Tatsumi, the young Buddhist priest and custodian of a temple outside of Kumamoto City who moonlights as a hip-hop DJ while indulges his love of beat boxing in the remote forests; Eri Fujii, who has devoted her life to the mastery of the sho, a rare and ancient Chinese bamboo wind instrument evoking the cry of the phoenix, and Akihiro Iitomi, a master of Noh theatre and a kotsuzumi drum player whose love of jazz almost matches that of his passion for Japan’s traditional performing arts. As a documentary, KanZeOn does not seek to explain as much as to enlighten, taking the viewer on a hypnotic sensual journey from the timeless to the modern by way of a mystical parade of images that resonate seamlessly with the sounds.

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This film was made collaboratively with three former child soldiers in Nepal. They tell their stories of why they joined the Maoist rebel war and take us back to their homes in the stunning mountains in remote districts of Nepal to meet their families and explain why they feel they had to join.

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The magnificent lagoon of Mayotte, an island in the Indian Ocean, is at the very heart of local life. The Mahorans are aware of this and try to protect it. From the wooded mountain top to the mangrove and into the sea, we came across dedicated men, women and children, turtles and sea cucumbers, right down to the vibrant coral reefs shimmering below in the turquoise water. The lagoon of Mayotte is a cradle of hope : to build a future that will be environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.

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'Hurricanes to Murmansk' is the story of the only British engagement on the Eastern Front in World War Two. At Stalin’s request following the German invasion of Russia in June 1941, Churchill sent a Royal Air Force Wing with Hurricane fighter aircraft, on board the first Arctic convoy to Russia in August 1941. Its purpose was to protect the strategic port of Murmansk – the vital supply route to the Soviet Union for the remainder of the war – and to train Russian pilots to fly British aircraft. This secret Anglo-Soviet operation – suppressed during the Cold War – is rediscovered 70 years on through interviews with surviving veterans, historians Antony Beevor and Richard Overy, and unique archive film and stills.