Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

In 1959 the legendary ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax set out on a road trip through The Southern States. Recently returned from years of voluntary exile during the McCarthy era, his goal was to collect a definitive cross-section of traditional American roots music, using prototype stereo tape-recorder. This was a world on the cusp of monumental change, the recordings that Lomax made serve as both a peerless collection of traditional music and a social document of the times. 60 years on, SOUTHERN JOURNEY REVISITED follows the route that Lomax previously traversed - searching out the remaining echoes of the recordings he made along the way. Alongside the music, the documentary takes the pulse of a nation, surveying what has and has not changed, for good and for bad, in the 6 decades since Lomax trod the self-same path. Inspired partly by the negative stereotypes of the South that predominate both in Europe and the rest of America, the filmmakers set out to see for themselves if those stereotypes held any water. What emerges is a rich and varied tapestry that gives the lie to any reductive theories about the people and politics of the land that lies “Away, Away, Away Down South”.

Synopsis

A b&w 16mm artists' essay film, drawn from the book ‘Republic Of Dogs / Republic Of Birds' by the poet Stephen Watts, exploring landscape, history, memory and the power of words to celebrate and resist.

“For four decades, poet, translator and activist Stephen Watts has been the quietly urgent, profoundly committed voice of the marginalised and the overlooked, whether person or place. He understands that the true ethical centre that matters lies at the edge, whether in the pull of outpost islands or the common ground of migrant streets. Now he has found his collaborative equal in the engaged 16mm filmmaker Huw Wahl, who has translated the text of Watt’s book-length prose poem Republic Of Dogs / Republic Of Birds into a luminous feature-length documentary essay of remarkable beauty and spirited attention. THE REPUBLICS moves from the early 1980s to the present, and from London’s Isle of Dogs and Scotland’s Western Isles to the mountains of Northern Italy. It is one of the most impressive artists’ films of recent years, whose own poetry speaks as honestly and eloquently as that of the writer it portrays.” (Gareth Evans, Moving Image Curator, Whitechapel Gallery)

Synopsis

Takako Shirawa has spent the last 36 years creating an extraordinary day centre for autistic people in Abeno, Osaka. Nestling on a quiet neighbourhood corner, Atelier Corners began life as a family run sanctuary for local autistic children and has developed into a pioneering site of artistic experiment with its members becoming renowned artists, exhibited in Japan and worldwide. Award winning artist and filmmaker Richard Butchins (himself disabled) visited the centre with disabled dancer Kazuyo Morita and spent two years documenting and creating an award winning video installation about the artists and their home.
This film shows the artists, the art and the woman that made it possible. It’s a testament to integration and the remarkable minds of the people that inhabit the building that is Atelier Corners. The film is part documentary and part artists’ moving image, a reflective and thoughtful account exploring the experience of disability in Japan, what is positive in the act of creation and the struggle against social exclusion, and how to foster and nurture the spirit of human life in a country that has traditionally excluded and hidden its disabled population from view.

Synopsis

Desperately building against the inevitability of time, a restless young woman is awaiting another upcoming loss. But maybe more important things never seem to be told.

Synopsis

One kilometre underneath the North Yorkshire coast, salt miners and research scientists work side by side at the edge of the biosphere. A young woman finds a new future in the darkness of this extreme environment.

Synopsis

A snapshot of an edgeland, Tilbury in Essex, during the months leading to the Brexit deadline in March 2019. The film moves back and forth between the individual, human-scale portraits of migration and the representation of the town’s economic activity.

Synopsis

Built from conversations with trans feminine people around the world, particularly the UK, Indonesia and Canada, the film documents We Dig, a threatre performance which centres around the actual excavation of a giant hole - a literal representation of a queer community needing to bury itself for protection.

Synopsis

A double portrait of two women whose lives have been shaped by a shared passion for homemaking and hospitality. Over the course of the film we see Rosemary and Nancy in their cottage in Yorkshire, where they have settled in retirement. We hear them speak about the project they embarked on together, which saw them shelter and re-house over five hundred families in Massachusetts over a thirty year period, as well as providing a personal and historical context to their story.

Synopsis

Using a visual rich balance of documentary and animation KINGS OF SUMAVA poetically explores the duality of hero, villain and reunites former Czech immigrant Vlasta Bukovsky and Czech people smuggler Josep Hasil. The infamous boarder guard who lead those who needed to leave communist Czechoslovakia through the mountains of Sumava and to freedom. Due to the communist regimes failed attempts to catch Josef his family were imprisoned for over 180 years.

Synopsis

A short film about the Argentine electroacoustic composer Beatriz Ferreyra, an original pioneer of early musique concrète alongside Pierre Schaeffer during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Here she discusses her ‘sound hunting’ recording techniques, and other thoughts on sound montage and spatialization. Featuring creaking doors, barking dogs and rainbow hands.
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020

Synopsis

Eliane from Chile, Milad from Iran, and Georgia from Greece are three migrants in the UK who share their thoughts on love, home, family, and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Synopsis

A group of Black people reflect on violence as it relates to institutional racism and what needs to be done to free the Black mind. The group comprised of family members of Black men who have died in police custody or psychiatric units; mental health and legal professionals; activists and artists.