Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

A Parisian grandfather searches for the granddaughter he has never seen, against a background of family trauma, and seeking to understand how his son became a notorious Islamic State terrorist. Official selection DocEdge Film Festival 2023 - World premiere

Synopsis

A champion and an expert safety diver seemed destined for one another despite the different paths they took to meet at pinnacle of the freediving world. The thrilling rewards and inescapable risks of chasing dreams through the depths of the ocean. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2023 - Premieres - World premiere Official Selection Hot Docs 2023 - Special Presentation Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2023

Synopsis

SILVER SERVERS tells the story of four ’Super Senior’ tennis players in their 80s and 90s - one of them the oldest living player in the world - as they prepare for the International Tennis Federation Senior World Championships; on their remarkable journey, they show us what drives them to keep on playing and competing, helping us realise what is possible in our own lives, whatever our age... and the joy in keeping on going. Tennis is the sport, but the game is life.

Synopsis

For the Welsh national Cheer squad, nothing means more than representing their country at the highest level. They’re willing to give it everything, but how will they fare in a final showdown for gold against cheerleading superstars Team USA? This empowering film follows the disabled and non-disabled athletes of Team Wales Adaptive Abilities on and off the mat as they prepare for the World Cheerleading Championships in Florida. After years of hard training, their chance to be named the best in the world comes down to a two-minute, 15-second routine for the judges. Grierson Awards 2023 - Nomination - Best Sports Documentary

Synopsis

Tilak, a gentle and reserved gay Nepali man in a rural setting is forced to marry a girl (Urmila, a school-teacher) by his family. How do the couple navigate social pressures (including not being able to produce a child) as well as take care of their needs.

Synopsis

In Accra, Ghana - a group of young men have formed a brotherhood rooted in a unique combination of acrobatics, dance and fire breathing. In lack of access to any formal training, they have developed their skills through internet tutorials and relentless practice sessions starting at 5am every morning. This troupe of highly-skilled performers have come to represent strength and positivity to their community, especially the youngsters they train and support with their earnings. They call themselves The Dragon Boys. Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2023 - World premiere

Synopsis

Exploring the relationship between the director, an amputee, and her prosthetist during the making of a prosthetic leg. The filmmaker seeks to demystify an unfamiliar space and ask what it means to create an extension to someone else’s body, questioning prejudice widely seen within our society's consideration of body image.

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.

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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