Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

In the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, the tradition of worshipping a prepubescent girl as a living goddess is still practised. The extraordinary lives of these girls have caused concern among Nepal's modernisers and human rights workers who argue that the practice is damaging to the girls and causing them to lose out on their childhood. This film is a portrait of three girl goddesses and the debates surrounding their lives.

Synopsis

When the story of the unspeakable has been told a thousand times, when the images of the unimaginable have been shown a thousand times, when the mind is numb - where do you go from there? You have to start anew. That is where this film begins.

On the banks of the River Danube, surrounded by the beautiful landscape of Upper Austria, lies the picturesque town of Mauthausen. Two kilometres from its town centre is a place that attracts busloads of tourists, parties of schoolchildren, people from all over the world. Tour guides come to work here every day while nearby the locals go about their daily lives. This is a place where thousands upon thousands of people from over 30 nations were tortured and murdered. How does it feel to be a tourist at a former concentration camp? How does it feel to work here as a guide, day in, day out? How does it feel to live here as a local with the dark secrets of the past? And what of those who've chosen this town to be their new home?

Synopsis

Ten years after the mass pit closure of 1984 the miners of the Tower Colliery pooled their severance pay and bought their own pit. They believed they were securing the future of their community. What will happen to the children and grandchildren of the 'last men standing'?

Synopsis

This short experimental documentary is a layered audio visual look at the past and present of Buffalo's old Hotel Lenox, and the many stories contained within its weathered walls.

Synopsis

A moving, sometimes funny and ultimately uplifting story about the love and commitment of two extraordinary people.

Lin, 54, is blind and has cerebral palsy, husband Ralph, 70, is her full-time carer and has Parkinson's Disease.

Filmed over 17 years by close friend and award-winning documentary maker, Marilyn Gaunt, this is an intimate portrait of a marriage that has overcome incredible odds and achieved great things.

Synopsis

Lin and Ralph is a moving, sometimes funny, and ultimately uplifting story about the love and commitment of two extraordinary people. Lin, 54, is blind and has cerebral palsy. Her husband Ralph, 70, is her full time 24/7 carer, and has Parkinson's disease.
 
Filmed over 17 years by close friend and award-winning documentary maker Marilyn Gaunt, this is an intimate portrait of a marriage that has overcome incredible odds and achieved great things. But recent events have cast shadows, and put what seemed to be an indestructible love under almost unbearable pressure.

Synopsis

Hector was eight when his father brought him to Gainesville, in the heart of the American south. Olga was 12 when her father swam the Rio Grande with her on his back. Thomas was 16 when his mother put him on a bus alone, with a bag of tacos for the 2,000-mile journey. Lost in Gainesville retraces their journey, as they tell their stories of growing up among lost hopes and dreams, in a town where work has dried up, where fascists march against them and where rich whites live out lives of faded glory.

Synopsis

While the Iraq war continues, a day's sightseeing and the features of a German hotel provoke a stream of thoughts about events large and small. Museum Piece is the second video in the Hotel Diaries series, a collection of late night recordings made in foreign hotel rooms which relate personal experiences to contemporary world events.

Other works in the series currently include Frozen War (Ireland, October 8th 2001) and Throwing Stones (Switzerland, November 13th 2004).

Synopsis

Pakistan was partitioned from India in 1947. Since then, these two nuclear states have been in a virtual state of conflict. Now for the first time in 15 years the Indian cricket team tours Pakistan and two film-makers from opposite sides of the border go along to capture a taste of how it feels to be the enemy.

Synopsis

Funny and bizarre, this is the heart-warming tale of an unlikely family striving to achieve spiritual fulfilment in the murky waters of the 21st century.
 
In a quiet corner of England a former rabbi is living a remarkable life based on the ancient patriarchy of the Old Testament. Six years ago, God told the rabbi that he was to become a Hebrew King, and like a good patriarch, take multiple wives. Now he raises horses, runs four second-hand furniture shops in Brighton and Hove and lives with seven women who, while not legally his spouses, believe their union is sanctioned by God. Each seeks a different sort of spiritual fulfilment: from Chava, widowed after 25 years of marriage and the oldest of the wives, to Tracy, who has been banished from the house for resisting Philip’s patriarchal role. As the film progresses, the filmmaker gets extraordinary close to the family but reserves judgement, preferring to present them with all their foibles, strengths and contradictions.

Synopsis

Inspired by the work of Edgar Degas the film captures Scottish Ballet Corps stretching, chatting, improvising and preparing in the wings. We are presented with a palpable sense of not just what it looks like, but what it feels like to inhabit a dancer's body.

Synopsis

In the mid 1970s, a revolution was ignited on the streets of London and New York - almost overnight it shattered the status quo and would have a lasting impact on future generations of youth culture. It redefined popular music and fashion, threatened the establishment, and legitimised an independent, do-it-yourself attitude. With a star-studded cast of historic and modern figures in popular culture, this feature-length film takes a highly original look at the Punk movement.

Combining recent interviews with rare and famous archival performances, a chronological narrative emerges, allowing this incredible story to tell itself.