Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

In a remote village in southeast Turkey, 35-year-old Meryem begins the annual olive harvest. For generations, the groves have sustained the village women's livelihoods, but this year, the harvest takes place under a shadow of fear. Following a devastating earthquake that destroyed Meryem’s home, 60% of the village’s olive lands have been seized by the government to build a new satellite city. As the concrete edge presses steadily toward their remaining fields, this harvest may be their last. Once a stay-at-home mother, Meryem picks up a camera to document the slow unraveling of her community. Women, previously confined to the home, step into public life - leading protests, sit-ins, and a landmark lawsuit alongside thousands of indigenous landowners, to protect the land they have tended for centuries. Interweaving Meryem’s video diaries with observational footage, the film moves between intimate scenes of the family harvest and the female-led resistance. As the movement unfolds, the once-perfect harvest is gradually disrupted by destruction. HERE TO STAY tells the story of a people’s fight for justice, tracing how tragedy transforms Meryem from mother to resistance leader, as she seeks to protect the land she calls home.

Synopsis

A filmmaker unpacks her evolving relationship with her adolescent German Shepherd, confronting the painful question of why, despite raising him, he seems to love her partner more. Blending observational and verité footage with personal narration, this tender story of unrequited love unfolds into an intimate inquiry into the complexities of caregiving and cross-species bonds. Contending with the influence of intergenerational parenting styles on the human–dog relationship and the ways dog’s express agency, the film ultimately asks whether it is possible to love truly without conditions.

Synopsis

In the days leading up to Christmas 1973 three astronauts enacted the first labour strike in outer space. Reconstructed from transcripts in claustrophobic close-up via CCTV system, THE CASE AGAINST SPACE is a real time investigation, dramatically collapsing embodied historical reenactment and speculative essayistic research - forming a collective testimony on struggle amongst the stars, of fights past, present and those yet to come. Official Selection Open City Documentary Festival 2026 Official Selection Visions du Réel 2026

Synopsis

At the crossroads of art, activism, and the ocean lies the extraordinary story of Paolo Fanciuli, a humble Italian fisherman with a revolutionary vision. Known as Paolo the Fisherman, he has waged a quiet but fierce war against illegal bottom trawling - one of the most destructive fishing practices threatening marine ecosystems. Driven by years of witnessing the ocean's decline, Paolo devised a radical and poetic solution: the creation of an underwater museum—a surreal seabed installation of massive marble sculptures. These works of art serve a dual purpose: they physically block trawling nets from destroying the seafloor, and they symbolically stand as monuments to resistance and hope. HOUSE OF FISH is a conservation documentary that blends Paolo’s intimate, personal journey with a natural history perspective on the fragility of our oceans... a cinematic ode to the sea and to those who dare to protect it through creativity and courage. By spotlighting Paolo’s efforts and the power of artistic activism, the film aims to awaken a deep emotional connection to our oceans - and inspire urgent action to save them.

Synopsis

An experimental documentary that unfolds as a ceremony of queer belonging, inheritance, and sound. At its heart is a dialogue with Afro-Cuban priestess and musician Amelia Pedroso, whose legacy is invoked through archival traces, letters, and performance. Narrated as a letter to an ancestor, the film situates the search for connection within an interior, oceanic dreamscape where water, memory, and ritual become both setting and subject. Cinematically, MODUPE moves between a stylised ensemble rehearsal and a sacred library-archive. The ensemble of voice, drum, and dance provides the film’s pulse, collapsing rehearsal and ritual into one. Deep blue light, reflective surfaces, and submerged imagery create a sensorial architecture that is both intimate and expansive, with water presence throughout evoking both flood and transformation. Formally, the film resists linear storytelling, privileging atmosphere, rhythm, and sonic immersion. Objects, archives, and sacred materials hold the same cinematic weight as bodies in performance, reframing the archive as altar and sound as shrine. Narrative unfolds through resonance rather than resolution, drawing the viewer into a space of listening and reflection. MODUPE proposes cinema as a vessel for inheritance, where identity is fluid, memory is alive and liberation is lived through sound.

Synopsis

The story of Carter The Bandit, a Peckham-born rapper navigating London's music industry and the challenges of being a visible, gay black man in a nation struggling to keep pace.

Synopsis

For centuries, fisherman Stan Rennie and family worked the waters off England’s North East coast . But when a vast tide of poisoned crabs washes ashore like a biblical plague, Stan’s world is turned upside down overnight. Dealing with the devastation of his business and failing health, he is thrown into a battle for the future of the region where he’s spent his entire life, an unlikely figurehead for a grassroots campaign to find the truth, delivered the only way he knows how - with heart and gallows humour. A film about the grief of navigating a world suddenly, inexplicably, irrevocably altered. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2026 - F:ACT Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

Much has been said about artificial intelligence's effect on fields such as the creative arts, but we are only now beginning to experience the geopolitical consequences. Intelligence Rising chronicles a bold experiment: some of the world’s most prominent thinkers in politics, military strategy, philosophy, and technology gather to play an intricate wargame designed by Marc Warner, a founder and leader who's been at the frontier of AI progress for 15 years. What ensues is a stark warning, but also a much-needed reminder of the power of human autonomy and empathy. Official Selection DOX DANMARK - World premiere Official Selection CPH DOX 2026 Official Selection SXSW London 2026

Synopsis

In an era of increasing brain fog and cognitive decline a profound exploration of humanity’s greatest conundrum - the nature of consciousness and self. A powerful, dream-like journey delving into the hearts and minds of four individuals whose lives intersect at the threshold of memory and reality. A quartet of voices: Maureen Winfield represents the struggle of the caregiver - her husband regressed to the period when they were engaged and no longer recognised her or the home they lived in for 40 years; Wendy Mitchell, diagnosed with young-onset dementia, embodies resilience, she uses ingenious coping mechanisms to navigate her changing perceptions; Pegeen O’Sullivan, daughter of novelist Liam O’Flaherty, offers a surprising perspective - although she has lost her memories, she has also been liberated her from fears; neuroscientistAnil Seth provides a scientific counterpoint, suggesting that our "normal" reality is itself a form of controlled hallucination. By weaving together deeply personal lived experiences with performance and scientific theory, CONSCIOUS illustrates how dementia shifts our internal worlds, challenging our preconceptions of ageing, showing us that whilst there are devastating losses on on the dementia journey, there can also be triumphant gains. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2026

Synopsis

The idyllic English countryside. An intensive dairy farmer called Derek. One day his neighbour, also a Derek, forsakes tradition, and starts to turn his land over to wild nature. The film charts the two Derek's turbulent, funny relationship as tempers fray, wild animals escape, and the land is transformed. Official Selection Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival 2026

Synopsis

In isolation on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Nigerian-born modular synthesis artist Colloboh transforms glacial and oceanic recordings into sonic compositions - uncovering a dialogue between ice and sea that reshapes his understanding of consciousness, ecological collapse, and humanity’s place within both. As his process unfolds, Colloboh transforms these sounds into layered sonic works that blur the boundaries between observation and communion. The film culminates in a haunting gesture: he plays the completed composition back to the landscape itself, completing a dialogue between artist and environment. A meditation on impermanence, consciousness, and the fragile bond between humanity and the natural world. Official Selection SXSW 2026 - World Premiere

Synopsis

A kind hearted, working class volunteer dons the Santa suit each year, quietly transforming his community through simple acts of generosity, testing whether his belief in giving can inspire others to carry the magic forward.