Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

For years Michael avoided seeing his father as he found him a constant reminder of his own possible fate. Now with signs that’s his father’s genetic disease has been passes down to himself, he’s back to help take care of him in his final days.

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The future of social housing is threatened by the AC30 Housing Bill. Set in London's East End, a trio of art students are eager to raise awareness about their neighbourhood especially the lives of tenants and people who work on the estate.

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In England banger racing isn't just a sport, but a way of life. JUNIOR BANGERS follows 11 year olds Finn and Harley through a cold winter race day in Birmingham. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Thrill Strand - European premiere Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - Documentary Shorts Program - Nominated, Short Film Grand Jury Prize

Synopsis

A short tale on the face of masculinity, portrayed by young men who grow up in inner city environments. Where the iconic ‘screwface’ is more than just an expression, it’s a matter of life and death. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Laugh Strand

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Documenting the everyday life of people from a town in Ghana called Jamestown - also known as 'Sodom & Gomorrah’. A place that seems to have fallen by the wayside: brief portraits of the inhabitants reveal a life marked by hopelessness and the struggle to move forward. Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2020 - International Competition

Synopsis

A bold and lyrical portrayal of two brothers, David and Sanchez, living on a Hackney council estate in East London. The film combines dance with documetary giving a compelling insight into their family and friendships, the stigmas they face daily and how they process their emotions. Official Selection IDFA 2019 - IDFA Competition for Short Documentary - International premiere

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Experimental documentary that recounts a town’s revival of an ancient folk tradition, placing it in contrast to today’s digital technologies.

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In 1928 at the age of eleven, Harry Birrell was given his first cine camera. ‘The greatest toy a child could ever receive’ he would say. His obsession with making movies would span the rest of the 20th century, despite the onset of blindness. In love, war and other adventures Harry recorded everything with a wonderfully cinematic eye on thousands upon thousands of feet of high quality 16mm film. From commanding a battalion of Ghurkas in the Indian army at the start of the WWII, to dangerous sorties deep behind enemy lines in Burma at its end; from the ballroom dances of his youth in the 1930s to teaching his children to twist in the 1960s: Harry’s entertaining and errant adventures are filmed with the intimacy of home movies but on the scale of 'Lawrence of Arabia'. Today, his granddaughter Carina, uncovers a lifetime of memories all spliced together in over 400 films, personal diaries (narrated by Richard Madden) and countless photographs that have previously lain undiscovered, along with the many cans of cine film, in rusting metal trunks in a garden shed. It’s one man’s cinematic vision of the 20th Century and his own personal journey through it.

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Writer and musician PJ Harvey and award-winning photographer Seamus Murphy hatched a collaboration - seeking first-hand experience of the countries she wanted to write about, Harvey accompanied Murphy on some of his worldwide reporting trips, joining him in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Washington DC. Harvey collected words, Murphy collected images. Back home, the words become poems, songs, then an album, which is recorded in an unprecedented art experiment in Somerset House, London. In a specially constructed room behind one-way glass, the public - all cameras surrendered - are invited to watch the five week process as a live sound-sculpture. Murphy exclusively documents the experiment with the same forensic vision and private access as their travels. By capturing the immediacy of their encounters with the people and places they visited, Murphy shows the humanity at the heart of the work, tracing the sources of the songs, their special metamorphosis into recorded music, and ultimately, cinema. Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Panorama Dokumente - World premiere

Synopsis

The Syrian war has raged on for over seven years, leaving hundreds of thousands of children traumatised - many of them living in refugee camps having fled the country. Professor and musician Nigel Osborne has been working in such situations since 1992, when he discovered the positive effects music therapy was having on children in Bosnia affected by such trauma. Since then Nigel’s techniques have been developed and are now utilised as part of a creative arts programme delivered to children traumatised by war - but how do these methods work, and do they really make a difference to the lives of children who have experienced unspeakable horrors and pain at such a young age? Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2019

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A movie shot over a weekend at the Durban International Film Festival, South Africa, in July 2018 by the underground South African collective Medu African Film Ensemble (aka Medu AF). With a sense of mischief and minimal resources pooled together by its contributors, the film tells the story of Fanon - a Black female filmmaker - beset by her demons ten floors up in an oceanside hotel, gazing out over African shores during the hermetically-sealed weirdness that is the world of a film festival. Using elements of fiction and documentary, the film follows Fanon as she wrestles with what the film industry expects her to be, and not to be, as she readies herself to pitch her first film. Fanon navigates this uncharted territory, while a supporting cast of real-world, “leading, industry professionals”, seated in her hotel room but never seeming to address her directly, dish out advice straight to camera - are they apparitions or voices in her head? Behind-the-scenes shifts to front-of-scene and back again, theory blends with praxis, as it becomes less and less clear who has the reins, unsettling the foundations of the so-called proper way of doing things. Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

Synopsis

An intimate window into how virtual reality (VR) app VRChat is affecting people's social lives for the better. This whimsical documentary tells the story of a couple that fall in love inside tangible VR, as well as two friends meeting up in real life for the first time.