Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

The first reported case of HIV in Papua New Guinea was in 1987. Since then, this 'Bad Sickness', perceived to be a punishment from God, has penetrated into the lives of the people and torn apart communities. In the atmosphere of silence, stigma breeds, and people are left to die.

This film features the lives of extraordinary people who have been affected by HIV and are actively challenging prevailing social attitudes and behaviours.

Synopsis

Bob Dylan once said 'I don't think I'm gonna be really understood until maybe 100 years from now'. Author of the Dylan To English Dictionary, a Dylanologist and originator of Garbology (the practice of rooting through rubbish in order to gain insight into prominent people's lives), A J Weberman has made it his life's work to understand Bob Dylan.

At times hilarious, at other times disturbing, this film is an interesting observation on our unbalanced desires to know more about celebrities and how far we are willing to go to get that information. Weberman does not see himself as a stalker and insists that Dylan should be grateful that he is around: 'I would have been to Dylan what Verlaine was to Rimbaud'. It's hard to see this as a tale of poet and critic, but rather a look at the bizarre relationship between the obsessed and the object of his obsession and how it can completely take over a man's life.

A hilarious recorded telephone conversation between A J Weberman and Bob Dylan from the 1970s punctuates the film in the form of animations, creating connections between Weberman's past and present. The film also enjoys a memorable cast of secondary characters including New York street poet David Peel, former child dancer Jay Byrd and Aaron Kay 'The Pieman'. To top it all, the film features a vivid Americana soundtrack performed by cast members, which adds a surreal commentary to the proceedings, creating a documentary like no other.
 

Synopsis

This documentary is a Trojan horse; strikingly using richly layered animation to smuggle through the audience’s compassion fatigue a story of two Ugandan women affected by HIV/AIDS. The Beloved Ones has a distinctive visual style, lyrical and impressionistic. This lends itself to the depiction of an Africa that despite its problems is a home to full lives, not just a series of tragic statistics.

Synopsis

A sensitive and detailed dialogue between the residents of an East London housing estate on the verge of significant and disruptive changes to their environment. The Devons charts the aspirations, frustrations and reality of life on the estate in order to understand and improve the inevitable regeneration process.

Synopsis

In a retirement home in Paris nothing much happens other than the odd bout of Muzak and trouble with the lifts.

But the arrival of some unusual visitors is about to disturb the peace - and set the scene for a strange confrontation between those at the beginning of life, and those at their very end.

Synopsis

What is it like to have God like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail?

British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission to the Ukraine.

Synopsis

Like so many before, Jamie Morgan asked the question 'What's it all about?' His spiritual search took him to California, to a workshop run by a white-haired spiritual 'guru' promoting sexual adventure and the possible existence of aliens. Jamie shed his clothes, inhibitions and defences on an emotional, amusing and provocative roller coaster ride towards enlightenment.

Synopsis

This is Tomorrow is the latest collaboration between film-maker Paul Kelly and pop band Saint Etienne, and is the result of the year they spent as artists in residence at the Royal Festival Hall. It is a journey into the past and the future of this internationally renowned and much-loved architectural space and its epic refurbishment. The film features interviews with people who have made major contributions to the building and its architecture, including designer Robin Day, original architects Trevor Dannatt and Jim Cadbury-Brown, Southbank Centre's current artistic director Jude Kelly, artist Jeremy Deller and author Alain De Botton as well as builders, manufacturers, local residents and Southbank Centre staff.

Synopsis

Throwing Paint Tins off the Roof is a poetic documentary about community, architecture and social change demonstrated through the fates of two brother buildings. Through the stories of past inhabitants of the two houses, this documentary awakens the memories of a fading era and displaced community in East London.

Synopsis

The unique story of how Dr Garri Urban, the film maker's father, went back after the fall of the Soviet Union to recover the evidence of his imprisonments by, and escapes from, the Soviet secret police, and also to discover how his family died in the Holocaust.

The film comprises video diaries shot over 14 years by Stuart Urban and an interview with Dr Garri Urban who also presents and narrates the story.

We experience sorrow and joy as his 25-year search, to find out if anyone from his family survived the Holocaust, brought about the discovery of his brother in Israel in 1964.

We see Garri find the woman who had been his fiancée and discover that she was imprisoned for eight years because of him.

Less than one in a hundred men who were tortured by the KGB were able to withstand the pressure to make a false confession or work for the organisation.

Even fewer survived and almost none escaped.

Garri Urban is thus a unique survivor, but also a humanitarian and a distinguished doctor whose work brought him awards from Soviet authorities.

After Garri's death in 2004, Stuart probes more and more fascinating mysteries and secrets to the man who survived what so few did. There are even allegations that Garri went on a dangerous mission for the KGB in Nazi Germany.
 

Synopsis

Usti Opre travels across Central and Eastern Europe showing the inventiveness and stylistic range of Roma musical traditions. With shifting rhythms, Usti Opre travels from Budapest to Serbia. From city to village, concert hall to café – the film challenges our ideas about 'gypsy' culture and rewards us with a rich and engaging musical panorama. Along with 11 accompanists, three musicians form the spiritual and musical core of the film. It is through their musical ideas and cultural backgrounds that the structural cloth of Usti Opre is woven together. Conversations between musicians and amongst friends appear in counterpoint to the music. The intimacy that surrounds what we are hearing broadens our understanding of music and artist.

Synopsis

The year is 2007, four years after the fall of Saddam. A young man travels home to Baghdad, inspired and eager to fulfil his obligation to his family and friends who have been waiting many years for his return.

On the journey we recount the trials and tribulations that faced the young man and his group of friends in their pursuit to make a dream come true. War, Love, God & Madness recounts the heroic tales of a group of young men filled with hope to rebuild Iraq through hope and culture. In 2003 the air is filled with the possibility of change and new beginnings, after 25 years of tyranny under Saddam, whilst still the scent of gunpowder looms in the air. This is a story which shows us a side of Iraq we won't see on the news.