Projects in categories: Documentary

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

Could Australia’s past help secure its future? 65,000 years in the making, BURNT COUNTRY is about fighting fire, with fire. Exploring the profound knowledge and wisdom of First Nations, this film is an invitation to connect to country and community.

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

Synopsis

A quest to find the truth behind a thirty year old memory, along the way connecting the dots between family, community, the power of place and the concept of home.

Synopsis

A joyous glimpse into skateboarding through the eyes of a global Muslim girls' skate crew, as they find their feet through faith and sisterhood, tenderly redefining what it means to be a 'skater.' WINNER (3rd Place) Reel Brum Award, Flatpack Film Festival 2026 OFFICIAL SELECTION London Short Film Festival, 2027 OFFICIAL SELECTION Muslim International Film Festival, 2026 OFFICIAL SELECTION London Indian Film Festival, Birmingham Indian Film Festival, Manchester Indian Film Festival 2024 OFFICIAL SELECTION Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2024 OFFICIAL SELECTION Tasveer Film Festiaval 2024 OFFICIAL SELECTION Skate & Surf Film Festival 2024 OFFICIAL SELECTION Southbank Centre, Dialledin ‘Unbound Archives’ Paris Skateboarding and Surf Film Festival 2024 Minute Shorts Presents: ‘Sport Shorts’ 2024

Synopsis

Filmed over a period of 10 years, this is the story of how a group of courageous fishermen in India’s Gulf of Kutch join forces with an NGO in Washington, DC to take on one of the world’s most powerful institutions, the World Bank Group. For years, the fishermen of the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat and their social movement MASS have been battling coal-fired power plants that threaten their livelihoods and traditional way of life by polluting the water and the countryside. Then, in 2015, their fight took an international dimension when US lawyers at EarthRights International took on their case to file the first-ever lawsuit against the World Bank’s private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation. One of the most destructive power plants in the Gulf of Kutch is owned by Indian multinational Tata, who received funding from the IFC. The IFC claims absolute legal immunity but the fisherman challenge this in ever higher courts. In 2018 the case makes its way to the US Supreme Court. Will the fishermen be able to change international law to hold the IFC to account – and save their livelihoods? Official Selection Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2024 - World premiere