Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Over one night, on a remote island off the coast of Iceland, young adults Birta and Selma take it upon themselves to counteract the damaging human impact on nature; exchanging night-time parties for nocturnal puffin patrol, in a coming-of-age story of young adults and pufflings alike. Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2023 - Documentary Shorts Competition - World premiere Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2024 - International Competition

Synopsis

Aged 24, Kit was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour. In a small town on the South Coast of England, his dad Lawrence, responds by throwing himself into a series of obscure diversion tactics. From growing herbal medicine in his spare room, to relinquishing his lifelong atheism and secretly attending a local synagogue, he begins to transform his identity for good. His estranged mum, a community nurse who spends her time caring for dying patients, can’t cope with the idea of living through the death of her son and must find a way to reconnect with her son before time runs out. What follows is Kit’s journey into the depths of the soul. As both filmmaker and character, he examines the nuances of living with a terminal disease and dissects the fear that comes with it. The film weaves a tapestry of each character's experience that unravels from a single moment that tore their lives apart and creates a powerful portrait of a dysfunctional family battling with issues of spirituality, kinship and death, whilst proving that humour and love always prevail. Official Selection True/False Film Festival 2023 - World premiere Official Selection Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival 2023 - European premiere Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2023

Synopsis

Exploring burial traditions as old as the Benin Kingdom, RED SOIL follows the family of Mama, a beloved Nigerian elder, as they prepare for her funeral. Following custom, the film, shot on 16mm, offers an insight into the Edo State’s perspective on death. Over the course of three days, observing pilgrimage, music, prayer and dance, the film suggests a different form of mourning: a collective celebration of Life. Official Selection Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2023 - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

Beneath the great Orme, Llandudno, North Wales, grey seals gather on the beach, whilst wild goats leap about on the cliffs above.

Synopsis

A curated collection of 12 people's real tributes and thoughts about saying farewell for the last time; from unsent letters, eulogies, and sentences, it is an epitaph to those awaiting that bittersweet closure, and a chance to express sweet words left unsaid.

Synopsis

In 1986 an amateur theatre group staged a production of Macbeth so disastrous that it made international headlines ... allegedly. Forty years later a filmmaker sets out to find out what really happened. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2023

Synopsis

A sci-fi city symphony inspired by London’s Great Smog of 1952. Created from archive footage, the film unfolds through fictional letters from a post-apocalyptic future. The film invites us to understand the smog in the context of the present-day climate emergency and our global destiny. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2023 - Short Film Competition - World premiere Official Selection Uppsala Short Film Festival 2023

Synopsis

Luke Fowler’s portrait of Scottish poet and filmmaker Margaret Tait takes its inspiration from her unrealised project about her home region of Orkney, drawing and riffing on her notes and footage to produce a blissful union of two artistic sensibilities. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2023 - Forum - International premiere Official Selection Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023

Synopsis

Exploring the life of Boris Becker, who became a tennis sensation when he won the first of his six majors at the age of just 17 and went on to have a glittering career, including 49 major career titles and an Olympic Gold. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2023 - Berlinale Special Gala - World premiere

Synopsis

Against a backdrop of cherished family photos and Carl’s striking artwork, the sisters look back on their childhood and share their dreams for the future. KIN charts the siblings’ transition into adulthood alongside the evolution of the digital photographic age and Carl’s art practice. Individual and collective memories play a central part in the film and become a vehicle through which topics such as conflict, separation and connection are subtly woven. Reflecting the depth of relationships and holistic support for artists and families within the Hastings-based art collective Project Art Works, KIN offers a perspective on caring for a sibling with complex support needs, rarely represented in the media. Informed by co-director Esther Springett’s own experience growing up and supporting her sister and family, the film lifts the lid on a lesser-heard sibling voice. Tim Corrigan (co-director) brings together beautifully crafted and touching scenes from Carl’s artistic life over the years, radiating from the Project Art Works studios. Official selection London Short Film Festival 2024 - UK premiere

Synopsis

STOLEN is the story of women who had the misfortune to fall pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ in an Ireland that heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. Over 80,000 unmarried mothers were incarcerated in institutions run by nuns from 1922 to 1998. Mothers and babies were cruelly separated shortly after birth with thousands of babies taken for adoption and their birth records rendered untraceable. 9,000 infants died from 1922 to 1998, a rate sometimes five times the national average. Others were fostered out as cheap farm labour from the age of six. It was a history that was largely ignored until the discovery that 796 babies had died between 1925 and 1961 in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home alone. Evidence of tiny remains found in an underground sewage plant on the site of the former home caused outrage and alarm escalated over what happened in other institutions such as Bessborough in Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary where more children died without burial records. The Irish government announced an investigation into Mother and Baby homes. Survivors relate their experiences of cruelty and loss and of happier outcomes in some cases, interwoven with historical analysis and artists’ responses to what happened. Official Selection London Irish Film Festival 2023 - World premiere

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