Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Fazaila is a Shia-Muslim teenager from East London whose mum thinks she's becoming 'too English'. This first film by her cousin Heena explores Fazaila's need to find her own way.

Synopsis

The village of Beshencevo in Central Russia lying beside Nizhni Novogorod and the Volga entertains a camera crew in the home of the Chiline family who have lived in the village. The family have lived through the Soviet past and are reluctantly entering the new prosperity of Russia. They argue and talk, live out their personal dramas and determinedly continue with their ancient way of life through the coldest months of Winter.

Synopsis

In career spanning nearly 20 years, from 1972 to 1991, Scottish filmmaker Bill Douglas only made four films and three of those were shorts. And yet he was highly acclaimed, winning the Silver Bear at Venice for his first film, garnering praise from the likes of Lindsay Anderson, Francois Truffaut and Satyjit Ray, and picking up the Independent's 'film of the year award' for Comrades in 1987. This documentary explores Bill Douglas's struggle from childhood poverty to acclaimed director. A remarkable man. A remarkable film-maker.

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As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice. In this eye-opening expose of the multi-billion dollar coffee industry, Black Gold traces one man's fight for a fair price.
 

Synopsis

Combining photographs, cine and video footage from family archives and present day interviews with his parents and siblings, Edinburgh based filmmaker Paul Hamilton wonders what it is to be a Black Sheep. This short documentary takes the audience on an emotional journey through the filmmaker's youth and the rocky relationship with his family.

Synopsis

A story of love, death, and resurrection... The dead car - discarded, dumped and crushed - is toxic waste manifested in burning tyre mountains and landfill until the European Union takes action. The spirit of the car lives on.

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A year in the troubled life of the Music School of Luanda, the capital of Angola, and one of the world's poorest and most dangerous places. Following four central characters, this film reveals not only their struggle with their country's war-ravaged past, but also their musical passion and ambition.

Synopsis

A staggering range of music captures the spirit of extraordinary world changes over the last 30 years.

Synopsis

Filmed over the course of 18 turbulent months in Scotland that took in a race murder, the G8 summit and the London bombings, Good Cop follows Strathclyde Police's Race Relations co-ordinator, Chief Inspector Tom Harrigan about his work in Glasgow, one of Europe's toughest cities.

Filmmakers Doug Aubrey and Marie Olesen gained unique access to Tom in his final year before retirement after 29 years service in the Police, and captured a remarkable insight into a maverick Police Officer and his often unorthodox working methods.

'There's only one race so how can you co-ordinate one race?' (Tom Harrigan).

Synopsis

After unprecedented rainfall the desert of Death Valley burst into flower. Unseen in living memory, the flowers drew tourists from around the world.

Greetings from Death Valley tells three stories from this forgotten landscape. From the last two residents in a gold rush town. From a village at the edge of a lake dried up to feed water to the distant city of Los Angeles. From the proposed site of the dump for all of the USA's nuclear waste.

Told through the voices of residents living with the consequences of these events, the film is three postcards from places America would rather ignore.

Synopsis

Guilfest has been running since 1993 in Guildford, Surrey UK. Acts in previous years have included Paul Weller, Jools Holland, and Van Morrison. The Documentary covers more than just the music, with interviews, history of the music festival, musical acts, and a true insight into how an independent music festival is produced. A different angle on modern day music festival documentaries, cameras were given out to festival goers to record their experiences over the three days.

Synopsis

Based on Mario Petrucci's award-winning book-length poem for Chernobyl, Half Life tells the story of the people who dealt with the world's worst nuclear disaster at ground level: the fire-fighters, the soldiers, the 'liquidators' and their families.