Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan achieved the height of its power: not in America's Deep South, but in the culturally liminal state of Indiana. Using never-before-seen archive, KLANDIANA explores the origin and horrors of Klan rule, and the legacy of historical amnesia that emerged in the era’s wake.

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A nuanced and intimate portrayal of six Black British men as they share their personal experiences of love and loss whilst in an Afro-Caribbean barbershop.

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Non-binary Japanese-Irish drag artist ShayShay storms the UK’s cabaret scene with a gender-diverse, Pan-Asian collective to dismantle racial stereotypes with love and glitter.

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RESISTANCE SAHARA, a haunting yet playful exploration of the liminal space between experimental, documentary, and fictive filmmaking, presents an artistic response to the Sahrawi refugee crisis from the frozen war in Western Sahara. Bringing international artists from a mix of disciplines to the Sahara Desert, and with them will create something new, a response to what they encounter. The film mix testimony from the mouths of the people who live in each zone of crisis with music; image; and symbolism. The audience is invited to reconsider their view of the nature of human suffering, and to build a new bridge of empathy with the people in these remote and sometimes forgotten places.

Synopsis

A creative collaboration with Ashéninka producer Gregorio Santos Perez and English writer Iain Sinclair, the film follows their ancestors' footsteps to the Peruvian jungle. Their journeys flip between continents and centuries as the narrative is wrested by the Ashéninka people, to produce an original mediation – part documentary, part fiction – on fate, family and the search for Eldorado.

Synopsis

Follow the story of a disappearing, centuries-old tradition that encapsulates the delicate balance, and deep connections, between humanity and the natural world. Kyung-Mi, Geum-Mi and Jeong-Mi Moon are three sisters, now in their sixties, Haenyeo "sea women", taking only what they need from the sea one breath at a time.

Synopsis

Our planet is full of life. From vast oceans to wide-open skies, the diversity of life here seems infinite. But one of those here on earth has been changing the balance for all of its residents. Yet this is a story of hope. Meet the people and communities who are making a difference and showing us the way to a brighter, wilder future. Restoring our natural world and restoring our faith in humankind across Britain's WILD ISLES.

Synopsis

The astonishing true story of Scotland's most notorious imposter. Top of the class, acing exams, taking the lead in the school musical. He’s the model pupil, until he's unmasked… In 1993, 16-year-old Brandon Lee enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school in a well-to-do suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. What followed over the next two years became the stuff of legend. Brandon had been privately tutored in Canada while he accompanied his mother, an opera diva, on tour before her tragic death. The preternaturally bright student surprised teachers by blazing toward his goal of entering medical school, displaying a wealth of knowledge beyond his years. Brandon found friends despite his initial awkwardness. He took bullied students under his wing, introduced classmates to seminal retro bands, and even starred in the school's production of South Pacific. But then his unbelievable secret was revealed. Filmmaker Jono McLeod returns to his old school for a nostalgic look at the strange but true story of his former classmate, Brandon Lee. Utilising playful, period-specific animation, a pitch-perfect soundtrack, the memories of students and teachers, and the talents of Alan Cumming to bring the tale to life, My Old School offers more than one surprise along the way. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2022 - World premiere

Synopsis

The career of Israeli photo reporter Micha Bar-Am, born in Berlin in 1930, thus becomes an assembly of iconic snapshots, enlargements and contact sheets which serve as the score for two voices. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2022 - World premiere

Synopsis

Focusing on the Haskell Free Library and Opera House – a unique municipal site that straddles the jurisdictions of Canada and the United States – the work continually recasts the border as at once powerful yet facile, absurd yet lethal. Filmed on location to activate the legal and symbolic potential of the site, 45th PARALLEL unfolds as a monologue in five acts, performed by acclaimed filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel. The story centres on Hernández vs. Mesa, a judicial case covering the fatal shooting in 2010 of an unarmed fifteen-year-old Mexican national by a US Border Patrol agent. At the supreme court Mesa’s bullet, which crossed the US/Mexico border, began to implicate missiles fired in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia and Libya. If this murder could be tried in the US, so too could 91,340 drone strikes. Official Selection New York Film Festival 2022 - World premiere Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023

Synopsis

As the Environmental Officer for Saint Helena’s doomed airport, Annina witnessed the unearthing of a terrible secret - a mass burial ground of 8,000 formerly enslaved Africans. Haunted by this injustice - and echoes of her childhood in Apartheid Namibia - she now fights for memorialisation of these forgotten victims. Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2022 - Documentary Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

A reflection on how the weight of the past walks with us and the indifference of the ever-present, observant sea. Official Selection International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2022