Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

APOLLO THIRTEEN: SURVIVAL is a visceral archive-led, cinematic re-telling of an iconic space story. In April 1970, NASA faced the greatest crisis in its history; three astronauts halfway to the moon on a spacecraft that had suffered a catastrophic explosion. This iconic space story is brought to life with rare access to the complete recordings of the Apollo 13 mission, alongside archival interviews with the crew, their families and members of ground control. As the spacecraft haemorrhages critical power and oxygen supplies, our approach immerses the audience in the unfolding drama of the crisis; from inside the spaceship, at mission control and within the families' homes. What transpired was one of the great survival stories in human history. A triumph of ingenuity, teamwork and human resilience as the world watched. Waited. Held its collective breath. Official selection - CPH:DOX 2024 Special Premieres - World premiere

Synopsis

Epic forests of the Siberian Taiga and black lava landscapes of a Hawaiian volcano are woven through this quietly powerful film that opens outwards from a personal story about living with uncertainty. Rebecca E Marshall draws from footage she has shot over twenty years in an intimate address to her child in the future. She builds connections between Agafya Lykova, an elderly woman surviving alone in the Siberian forest who scares bears away by banging space-rocket debris, a crew simulating life isolated on Mars and her young child discovering the world minute by minute. This endlessly surprising journey offers up images that shake ideas of past, present and future to form a deeply tender vision of the timeless human connections that continue to weave through an increasingly divided world. Xylouris White (drummer Jim White, Dirty Three; lutist Giorgos Xylouris and Guy Picciotto, Fugazi) provide a haunting original score. Official Selection Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival 2024 - World premiere

Synopsis

Following up on a questionable suicide, a reporter and her cameraman venture into an apartment complex looking for answers. Escorted by the building's concierge they begin to uncover the truth, and discover something terrifying roaming the hallways with them.

Synopsis

Against the backdrop of the Women, Life, Freedom protest movement in Iran, filmmaker Elahe Esmaili is helping her parents to pack up the family home. As the boxes stack up, discussions flare between the generations: Elahe does not wear the hijab, embodying the courage of her generation’s struggles. But can changing a society be as simple as moving house? Official Selection Visions du Réel 2024 - World premiere Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2024 Official Selection Telluride Film Festival 2024 Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2025

Synopsis

This XR piece brings us into to the world of Tim and Pam Fogg, rope access specialists and speleologists who see exploring caves akin to an archaeological dig that reveals geological and climate history. Set in Northern Ireland, this is a portrait of what drives two passionate individuals to discover new caves despite the dangers, darkness and the unknown that lays ahead. While following their descent, the entire cave system is revealed in stunning miniature detail capturing otherworldly formations and sounds. Plunged into darkness, experience the bottom of the cave in true scale and hear from Tim and Pam how vital it is to preserve these environments in the age of the Anthropocene. Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2024 - XR Experience Spotlight - North American premiere

Synopsis

A cinematic love letter to the Moviola film editing machine, led by Academy Award winning editor Walter Murch, detailing how it dominated English-language filmmaking for most of the 20th century. Invented in 1922, the Moviola remained for a long time the dominant machine for editing film in English-language cinema. Mastering it allowed an editor, in tandem with the director and producer, to create a language and rhythm within a film. Her Name Was Moviola sees Academy Award® -winning sound and film editor Walter Murch working with a team to rebuild a Moviola editing suite to take us through the process of how a film was pieced together. Using two scenes from Mike Leigh’s 2014 drama Mr. Turner – reverse-engineered from digital to 35mm prints – Murch and his collaborators take us through the way the Moviola was employed to bring a multitude on individual shots together into one cohesive narrative. It’s a riveting deep-dive into a process that is key to every form of filmmaking. Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2024 - World premiere

Synopsis

The feature-length documentary is an attempt to answer one of the most vital questions in all our lives: What is the meaning of home? The film focuses on family, identity, emigration (through the lens of Polish-Irish-South African-English ties), as well as the circle of life, death and rebirth. The axis of the film is a house which connects and shelters, and which allows the lives of the characters to be transformed. It's genesis and inspiration was a seven-year collection of films and photographs covering the lives of residents who lived and worked under the cover, protection and generosity of the house’s owner – a 90-year-old, bed-bound writer – Elizabeth – in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London. Official selection Kinoteka Polish Film Festival 2024 - UK premiere

Synopsis

Andreas Waldem, a Korean-Swedish Elvis impersonator enters an Elvis Tribute Act Competition that takes place Porthcawl a faded seaside town in South Wales. The film follow his journey as he delves into his hopes, fears and dreams whilst simultaneously peeling back the layers of Andreas' conflicts within his identity.

Synopsis

What happens in your mind when you act on impulse? This project, narrated by Tilda Swinton, playfully explores what it means to live with ADHD - employing Mixed Reality to capture the visual cacophony of our thoughts and what it means to be neurodivergent. Through captivating gameplay, this Mixed Reality piece follows four outsider characters whose rollercoaster of emotions leads them to a life on the edge. As the characters explore their thought patterns, users can uncover their own to reach a state of empathy and understanding. Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2024 - XR Experience Spotlight Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

A smartphone feature exploring motherhood, filmed over 20 years by BAFTA award-winning British director Victoria Mapplebeck. At the age of 38, Victoria Mapplebeck found herself single, pregnant and broke. Unable to combine motherhood with freelance directing, she was forced to abandon her career in TV, instead turning the camera on herself and her son, Jim. Victoria first began documenting their lives with her old DVCAM before shooting almost daily on five generations of smartphones, from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 15. She recorded hundreds of hours of footage, capturing each twist and turn in Jim’s life, from the thumbs-up he gave her during her first scan, to his first day at college. MOTHERBOARD is a complex, personal and unsentimental portrait of a mother-son relationship from birth to adulthood, exploring the ways in which Victoria and Jim navigate two generations of absent fathers and Victoria’s breast cancer diagnosis when Jim was just 13. The warm, playful and sometimes strained relationship between Victoria and Jim plays out against a backdrop of family life unfiltered. MOTHERBOARD is the antidote to the judgmental and unrealistic expectations we have about motherhood, creating an honest, funny and relatable film for any mother who has wept tears of both joy and frustration. Official selection CPH:DOX Film Festival 2024 - World Premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

Having depleted their wells, off-shore platforms await final decommissioning. Nearby on land, a yearly burning of oil takes place.

Synopsis

Unfolding at the nexus of immersive technology, creative storytelling and wellbeing, SOUL PAINT delves into the richness of the embodied human experience. Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2024 - XR Experience Competition - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024