Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

An investigation into the commercial uses of ganja in the island of Jamaica. A documentary into using mariuanja for food, fuel, fibre and medicine in Jamaica.

Synopsis

Polish poet and retired BBC radio journalist Boleslaw Taborski revisits the Mokotów district of Warsaw where he took part in the 1944 uprising against occupying Nazi forces. He visits sites of execution and reminisces about friends who perished in the struggle for a Poland free from Nazi oppression.

Synopsis

Oil City Confidential is a film noir feature length documentary and about Dr Feelgood; it's the story of four men in cheap suits who crashed out of Canvey Island in the early '70s, sandpapered the face of rock’n’roll and left all that came before a burnt-out ruin, four estuarine John-the-Baptists to Johnny Rotten's anti-Christ.

Synopsis

Old friends. Young friends. Lovers and loners. They all wait, hoping, to see something they've never seen before.

Is it a Virgin? Thai? Singapore? American? They all could be another one for the book.

With a flask of tea or a bottle of wine to keep warm, every day is a new day around the perimeter fence at Heathrow. Every day is a plane day.

Synopsis

Shanghai Below the High Rise is a cutting-edge documentary about Shanghai's 'underclass'; a group of millions made up of both impoverished local residents and migrant workers, who are all paying the ultimate price for the city's ongoing development programme in the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo.

In an attempt to get the stories of those worst affected, the film journeys into the city's poverty-stricken backstreets, uncovering a way of life that could very soon be gone from the city forever.

Among the many conflicts explored, we see a backstreet neighbourhood ravaged by an incomplete construction project; migrant workers forced into the city's 'hidden' economy; and former state employees left jobless, and with limited future prospects.

This is a Shanghai rarely seen in the West. This is a Shanghai from below the high rise.

Synopsis

The Havana Boxing Academy is a Cuban boarding school that takes 9-year-old boys, and turns them into the best boxers in the world. Sons Of Cuba follows the stories of three young hopefuls through 8 dramatic months of training and schooling as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives so far: Cuba's National Boxing Championship for Under-12's.

But during the season, crisis strikes: Fidel Castro is taken ill, and all of Cuba's Olympic boxing champions defect to the USA, leaving Cuba at a crossroads, and the boys contemplating a changing world.
 

Synopsis

Speakers Corner: You Have The Right To Remain Vocal is a 1 hour documentary film that serves as a modern commentary on the origins and fragility of freedoms of speech and assembly.

Since 1872, people have gathered at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park to exercise their rights to free speech in all its forms. The filmmaker weaves interviews with park speakers, hecklers, local politicians, historians, linguists and sociologists involved in this modern phenomenon to create a powerful critique of the true nature of democracy in our society.

The film examines in detail a place where socialists, Islamic fundamentalists, labor politicians, historians, utopians, Zionists, white supremacists and Christian evangelicals all congregate weekly in a single small location. All are freely expressing and debating their views, there is no violence, and thousands of people show up to participate, every Sunday. This is the essence of Speakers Corner, a small area of Hyde Park, London, which was protected by a British Act of Parliament in 1872, to allow people complete freedom of speech in a public place. This is the only such bastion of free speech in the world and stands as a powerful metaphor for global democracy and our future.

Synopsis

Don Letts is an unsung hero of British music. Told in Letts' unique voice, Superstonic Sound is a documentary about his family legacy that mirrors the history of Bass in the UK and his fighting for identity being the first generation of British born Black. A journey from Dub and Reggae to the legendary very first Punk club 'The Roxy' in the mid-seventies, crossing Hip Hop towards Dubstep; a musical, cultural and personal travel between past and present.

Synopsis

The Arbor is the powerful true story of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and her troubled relationship with her daughter Lorraine.

Andrea wrote honestly and unflinchingly about her upbringing on the notorious Buttershaw Estate. When she died, tragically at the age of 29 in 1990, Lorraine was just ten years old.

The Arbor catches up with Lorraine in the present day, also at 29; ostracised from Buttershaw and now in prison, serving a sentence for manslaughter for the death of her son.

Whilst in prison and undergoing rehab, Lorraine is re-introduced to her mother's plays and private letters and as she reflects on the parallels in their lives, she begins to come to terms with her role in the death of her son.

Clio Barnard, began recording audio interviews with Lorraine Dunbar, other members of the Dunbar family and residents from the Buttershaw Estate over a period of two years. The material was edited to form an audio 'screenplay' which forms the basis for the film as actors lip-synch to the voices of the interviewees. This footage is intercut with archive footage and extracts from a re-staging of Andrea's first play.

Synopsis

This five piece glam-rock band go on a UK tour for one week gigging every night until they give up and cancel half way through. This is a comical 'behind the scenes' look at a journey of hopes and dreams smashed by reality. Musicians bonding and ultimately falling out all in one week of rock n roll.

Synopsis

Henry Singer's gripping film tells the story of the extraordinary life and brutal death of filmmaker-turned-conservationist Joan Root, and of her campaign to save her beloved Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The film is both a biopic and a classic whodunit. Who killed Joan Root?

Synopsis

The Lovers and Fighters Convention tells the story of one night at London's legendary Transfabulous Arts Festival. In the wake of the Queen signing into law The Gender Recognition Act in the mid-noughties, a community developed of people who wanted to recognise a new culture in the UK, a culture of 'transness' - artistic work that developed around gender.

The Transfabulous Arts Festival became a lightning rod for these ideas. This observational documentary shows just one night at this festival in 2008.