Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Combing anonymous documentary testimony with imagined creative scenes to tell the stories of those who have called the oldest queer support line in the UK, seeking guidance on everything from where to find the nearest leather club to how to come out, start a family or mend a broken heart. The film is a love letter to queer memory and possibility, LGBTQ+ community and care, and the power of collective imagination. Official Selection Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

Iraqi medical anthropologist Dr. Omar Dewachi unearths how Acinetobacter baumannii went from a benign bacteria, to a “perfect killer”, also known by its US moniker ‘Iraqibacter’ or the ‘invisible enemy’, and how the consequences of war can drive pathogens, which threaten the viability of antibiotics, and our health, globally. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2024 - World premiere

Synopsis

An intimate, expressive film about how endometriosis has robbed Georgie Wileman of time. Told in the first-person and blending present-day narrative with memories from the past, the film is a uniquely personal account with unprecedented access.

Synopsis

Life, death and making meaning are the heart of a beautiful and often very funny film about an ageing couple who, after an accident, face the inevitability of impermanence and seek a deep peace in their relationship while they still can. Thirty years after a chance encounter, Maggie and Joel, aged 75 and 84, are still very much in love. But their relationship is not without complications. Born in the hard-boiled Bronx, Joel Meyerowitz is a world-renowned photographer with major exhibitions and 40 books to his name. British-born Maggie Barrett is a talented but less recognised artist and writer. There is a knot of unease in their relationship, which is further strained when Maggie falls and breaks her leg and Joel must take on her caregiving. In the shadow of mortality, each with a long and dramatic life behind them, the hard truths of life together provoke in Maggie and Joel an attempt to find a shared inner peace while there is still time. With unique access to the couple's lives, directors Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet have created a profoundly moving film about living, creating and loving. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2024 - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

Structuring this intimate and insightful portrait of Lynda Myles, academic Susan Kemp invokes a form known to define, criticise, and shift paradigms in culture – the manifesto. Meshing archival material with interview subjects including Jim Hickey and B. Ruby Rich, Kemp employs a series of provocations to tease out the philosophy behind a lifetime of ground-breaking film work. In the film's central conversation, Myles beautifully expresses the thrill of putting on a show (including the 1972 Women's Event, pioneering retrospectives of Douglas Sirk, Sam Fuller and Raoul Walsh and many more) while always avoiding the polite. This vivid filmic manifesto is an active document set to inspire anyone who programmes, produces or simply loves cinema today. (Kate Taylor) Official selection Dublin International Film Festival 2024 - UK premiere

Synopsis

Producing, writing, and directing, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created some of great classics of the British golden age including The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. In the words of Martin Scorsese their films were “grand, poetic, wise, adventurous, headstrong, enraptured by beauty, deeply romantic, and completely uncompromising”. Scorsese takes the audience on a very personal journey as we hear how, from a young age he was captivated by their films, how they helped shape his own filmmaking and how a later friendship with Michael Powell left an indelible mark on his own life. Brought to life with rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger and Scorsese, the story is told using diaries, audio recordings, home movies, personal snapshots and of course the films themselves. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2024 - Berlin Special - World premiere Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER, SOMEONE'S SON is the most recent film from director Lorna Tucker, maker of the acclaimed WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST. Narrated by Colin Firth, the film tells the story of three main characters who have lived on the street. As well as moving personal stories, in a surprising narrative twist in the film, we see projects across the UK which are helping to address the causes of street homelessness and we meet experts who help us understand the root causes of rough sleeping and what can be done to stop it. It is a film which is moving, enlightening and enraging and aims to change public attitudes to homelessness — showing how easy it is to slip into it and how all of the homeless are someone’s daughter or someone’s son.

Synopsis

The race to get a climate change act for Northern Ireland. Usually laws are written by anonymous civil servants in government departments, Northern Ireland’s first climate change bill was developed by activists, NGOs and academics. Members of the Climate Coalition Northern Ireland tell the nail biting story of their battle with a minister determined to deny, delay and distort their bill. A glorious mixture of humour, contemporary footage, animations and heartfelt testimony brings to life a narrative from Northern Ireland for once not mired in the violence of the troubles.

Synopsis

A speculative narrative that takes place in a future of the past, in a present ruptured now. An intimate exploration of grief and resistance across diasporic distance in shifting landscapes of loss, from the streets to the bed; in sites of displacement, nuclear contamination, and military occupation from Scotland to Puerto Rico; from the bottom of the ocean to the planet Uranus. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2024 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

Synopsis

Huiju learned of her biopsy results, but lied to her mom about them. Feeling guilty about the lie, she embarks on her journey to find cancer patients who have the same diagnosis and learns about their experiences. After hearing their stories, she finds the courage to tell the truth.

Synopsis

Striving to build a successful life in London, Reza places an ad in a peculiar newspaper and discovers the Iranian community hidden in plain sight. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

This film follows comedian Janey Godley on her 2023 Not Dead Yet Tour, after her diagnosis for ovarian cancer. Janey tours with her best mate Shirley, and daughter comedian Ashley Storrie. Intercut with her stand up we tell the story of her extraordinary life, told with her trademark take-no-prisoners honesty and dark humour. Janey grew up in poverty in Glasgow’s East End, her mother was an alcoholic. As a child Janey was sexually abused by her uncle. Janey tells the story of her mother's horrific murder, when Janey was 21, revisiting the river where her mother’s body was found. Age 19 Janey married into a notorious family of Glasgow gangsters, running a successful pub for them. When she and her husband fell out with his family Janey reinvented herself as a comedian. Janey talks about the sense of freedom tinged with guilt that she experienced when she became a comic, choosing to work away from her young daughter. Throughout the film Janey deals with the grim reality of stage 3 cancer, along with the highs and lows of touring, ending in an emotional show at Glasgow's 3,000-seater SEC. Official selection Glasgow International Film Festival 2024 - World premiere