Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

A film about culture, colonialism and the power of photographs told by a community in West Africa. In 1911, the anthropologist Northcote Thomas made a study of the Igbo-speaking people of Nigeria. Among thousands of photographs he made are many portraits of men whose faces are covered with scarification marks known as ichi. These images of deeply-scarred faces appear to confirm colonial-era imaginaries of African customs. Returning the 110-year-old photographs to the communities whose heritage they depict, however, occasions a cultural revival as the traditional custodians of ichi tell their story and re-enact their lost art. Rather than marks of tribalism, ichi signified nobility, and protected people from being enslaved. Ichi cutting was brought to an end in the 1930s by missionaries who regarded it as barbaric. In the film, the few surviving men who bear the scarification marks recall their harrowing childhood experiences having their faces cut and undergoing this transformative rite-of-passage. Spirited despite their advanced years, they talk with a mixture of pride and regret at the loss of traditional Igbo culture. Made collaboratively with the Umudioka community of Neni, the film is filled with song, dance and masquerade, and offers a profound reflection on continuity and change.

Synopsis

Inhabiting a bizarrely unusual body (the body she loves), and navigating daily discrimination, Ella searches the world for another like her – "Is There Anybody Out There?" Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2023 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere Official Selection Hot Docs 2023 - Special Presentation Official Selection Krakow Film Festival 2023 - International Documentary Competition Official Selection Sheffield Doc/Fest 2023

Synopsis

The painter, now a filmmaker, talks through the making of a painting, and the making of a video from it years later. The oil on board surface is no longer still but animated with motion paths and filters.

Synopsis

Exploring the multifaceted interrelationships between trees and fungi within forest ecologies. Featuring the voice of ecologist Suzanne Simard, and her ground-breaking research into tree and fungal communities, the documentary reflects on the ‘biological neural network’ of forest ecosystems, and how the reciprocal, shared behaviour of mycelium and trees creates a resilient and healthy community of co-dependent species. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2023

Synopsis

“At least if I died tomorrow, you knew that I was here.” One of the many disarming statements voiced by the singular Irish actor, poet and singer Richard Harris (1930 - 2002), of whom it’s easy to speak in superlatives. Forty inimitable years full of fabulous and controversial moments from his private and professional life, dating from Harris’s iconic roles in the dramas THIS SPORTING LIFE and RED DESERT, to the wisdom, tenderness and dignity with which he imbued his Marcus Aurelius in GLADIATOR and Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films. Seasoned filmmaker Adrian Sibley adopts an original approach to address the conventions of the documentary portrait, among others, assisted by Harris’s sons, Jared, Jamie and Damian. Karel Och, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Official Selection Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023 - Out of the Past

Synopsis

A natural history fantasy film, following the dramatic lifecycle of the wild salmon in human form, with narration by Marianne Faithfull. Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2023 - Short Film Competition - World premiere Official Selection Annecy International Animation Festival 2023 - Official Competition Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2024 - Labo Competition BAFTA Film Awards 2024 - Nomination - Best British Short Animation

Synopsis

A short film about a remarkable woman called Joanne Bruce who has lived with cerebral palsy since she was very young. Cerebral palsy is a neurological condition affecting muscle control, movement and co-ordination, for which there is no cure. As Joanne shares her week with us, we see a full mix of activities – her work at Boots in Customer Care, her Tai Chi, swimming and social club, and a day out in Brighton.

Synopsis

A heartwarming documentary featuring six women aged between 77 and 89. As young women they left their homes in the Caribbean, Ireland and South Asia to answer post WWII Britain’s call for workers. The film uses archive film and photography to interweave pivotal moments in women’s social history with the interviewees’ memories of life in Britain. These are the moments and movements that impacted women then and now. They include the Notting Hill uprising and the fight for racial equality in housing and jobs. The immigrant workers’ rights fought for by the Grunwick factory strikers and the lengths mothers went to in order to ensure their children received a proper education. Today, these fearless women are almost invisible to modern society, but as the film shows, they are still vibrant, engaging and full of mischievous fun.

Synopsis

As youth violence rises in London, a wild and rebellious community of young people tear through the city’s streets in the name of ‘Knives Down, Bikes Up’. Community elder Mac fights for their problems to be seen, but their already precarious existence is jeopardised when they are forced away from the safe spaces of central London. Meanwhile, rider Miles finds solace from his previous life of crime in this unofficial family, but his world is threatened when the past comes back to haunt him.

Synopsis

The isolated mountainous region of Tusheti, in Northeast Georgia, is the site for a reflection on the importance of ritual, the maintenance of community ties, and how modernisation and migration are transforming rural landscapes. Shot over several years, Let Us Flow uses inovative audio-visual techniques to make visible the symbolic and physical division of sacred spaces within the community and offers a nuanced perspective on a culture where ancestral shrines are only accessible to men. In a verdant mountainous region of Georgia, tradition and modernity intertwine. Carrying on the traditions of their ancestors, the men in the film race on horseback down mountains and across wide, expansive valleys in a performance of masculinity. The filmmaker states, “As the film progresses it becomes a film about distance: the twenty meter distance the Tushetian women have to observe from their shrines, the distance between me and my protagonists, between languages and translation.” Medoidze is never seen in front of the camera, made visible only through her voice. Yet even with this distance between her and her subjects the film, as shot from her perspective, makes for a truly immersive piece of observational filmmaking.

Synopsis

An immersive audio-driven film that asks you to listen. Why is it that BPoC communities in the UK do not feel like they belong in the outdoors? The film is based on audio interviews taken from a group of BPoC women outdoor activists who are changing the story.

Synopsis

For years now, Wayne, father of 12-year-old JayDee, has been into banger racing, a rough style of racing in self-built cars. Now that JayDee is nearly 13, his debut race is finally in view.