Projects in categories: Documentary and with status: Post-production

Synopsis

An expansive journey through the Kazakh steppe, this film piece seeks to excavate layers of myth, history and geology to reveal the shifting fault lines between a government, its people and their land. The film brings into focus Kazakhstan’s search for a post-Soviet identity and a state-sponsored programme of cultural production that on the one hand connects back to the ancient folklore and belief systems of the Silk Road, while on the other, seeks to embrace the values of Western capitalism. Adopting an experimental documentary form, On A Clear Day provides a meditative faux observational film about the continual process of construction involved in nationhood and national identity. Shot on 16mm, the camera is drawn across the terrain of Eastern Kazakhstan through a series of encounters that offer a translation of a reality within the challenging social and political context of Kazakhstan. The Kazakh steppe creates a rhythm for the film as the vast terrain forms the conditions for each encounter with locations including the Bogatyr open quarry, Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, Ekibastuz generating station and the newly constructed city of Nur-Sultan. De-literalised through the use of constructed as well as un-orchestrated scenes; the film attempts to apprehend truths. Its facts, however, are always based on fictions - the ancient myths and folklore of Kazakhstan itself.

Synopsis

When the Calais Jungle was ignored and condemned by authorities, ordinary people stepped in to support the refugees. This is the untold story of the volunteers and those they tried to help. ON OUR DOORSTEP delves deep into an aspect of the refugee crisis that rarely reached the press. With NGOs being blocked by red tape and the absence of any positive action by French or British authorities, the film is a behind-the-scenes look at the unprecedented grassroots movement that rose to aid the refugees in Calais, and the community that sprang up there, before it was forcefully demolished. This is the story of what happens when young and inexperienced citizens are forced to devise systems and structures to support 10,000 refugees; and are left unguided to face the moral and emotional conflicts, blurred lines and frequent grey areas of giving aid to vulnerable people. People who do not want to be there. Originally arriving at the Calais Jungle as a volunteer, Thomas Laurance ended up documenting what he saw over the year he spent there, until the camp’s destruction in October 2016. This film is the result of the remarkable and intimate access he gained to both volunteers and refugees.

Synopsis

Every year cowboys travel from all over the American West to share their poetry at cowboy poetry gatherings.

Synopsis

14 Women, 3000 Nautical Miles, X Trillion Pieces of Plastic. X TRILLION is a film about an all-woman crew who sailed 3000 nautical miles to one of the most remote places on Earth - the North Pacific Gyre or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The aim was to research the densest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world. It was a journey that promised to change not only their lives but the very future of our planet. Director Eleanor Church was part of a team of 14 women from around the world - from scientists to packaging designers, engineers, teachers, artists and more - each one looking and learning about this issue from a very different perspective. This was eXXpedition's 10th voyage. The crew spent three weeks sailing through the middle of this gyre, collecting scientific data for international research projects with a focus on how these trillions of pieces of micro plastics are impacting human, and particularly women’s, health. This is a story of hope, filled with life, magic and a call to action that burns with optimism.

Synopsis

iHuman is a political thriller about artificial intelligence, power and social control. From the inside of the booming AI-industry this film shows how the most powerful and far-reaching technology of our time is changing our lives, our society and our future. iHuman follows pioneers at the frontline of the invisible AI-revolution to see how this technology is developed and implemented. Through some of the brightest minds in the AI-industry iHuman draws the roadmap to where we are going. How does AI impact who we are? iHuman shows a growing conflict in the tech world and investigates the consequences of the power concentration of the multi-billion-dollar AI-industry. The film explores the need for international standards and regulations for the development and implementation of AI and asks if it possible to regulate AI. What is coming our way? At this turning point in history, what goals and values do we program into our AI systems? What is at stake? Who punches in what codes for our future? iHuman is made for both theatrical and broadcast release. With strong character-driven stories this film is made to entertain and inform a wide international audience about the impact of the most powerful technology of our time.

Synopsis

Accused of killing her new-born baby, young mother Ashley Ard is going on trial for murder. But what really happened that winter night in Anchorage, Alaska? Alison Millar's probing documentary reveals the secrets and lies in a case that has gripped America.

Synopsis

A portmanteau documentary made by displaced Syrian filmmakers through workshops in Beirut, Amman and Istanbul. Each film is distinct, but what they have in common is their ability to surprise and move us with otherwise untold known stories told in a highly accessible and creative way, reminding us of the strains of exile and the resilience of the human spirit.

Synopsis

"Defeat isn't when you fall, but when you fail to get back up." The story of a former athlete’s painful breakdown and his comeback as a boxer.

Synopsis

Nelson Mandela recounts his life story, from birth, through life to death surrounded by his grandchildren in unique drama-documentary featuring extraordinary unseen footage. Narrated by Mandela himself, one of history’s extraordinary enduring figures, his account reveals previously unheard, personal and touching testimony, teamed with emotional conflict. Travelling through time back to his beginnings as a rebellious young man in South Africa; his rebirth as a lawyer; 27 years imprisonment on Robben Island and finally to his release and free and fair elections and victory against Apartheid rule. The interviews and narration are the last oral and video account by the great man before his death. The film was edited by Gregers Salls (SENNA) and officially supported by the Mandela Foundation, and Mandela’s own family.

Synopsis

BRIGHT PHOENIX is a prism of a drama within a documentary that explores the uncomfortable shifts in psychogeography as Liverpool is ripped down and rebuilt. The centrepiece is a performance film of Jeff Young's live play, set within the prism of a documentary lament of Lime Street, the gateway to the city; a row of gin palaces and picture palaces, a rallying point for the sundry of Liverpool, once a peoples’ playground, then left to rot before demolition and a sterile desecration of the past in the form of ‘regeneration’. Ghosts, childhood innocence, the glory of film in the imagination, neglected but etched in pictures, splendid forever.

Synopsis

The real events surrounding the sudden economic collapse of British Entrepreneur Sir Freddie Laker who had dared to take on the elite giants with his pioneering low cost ‘peoples airline’ Skytrain, and the resulting billion dollar Grand Jury case in Washington DC between 1983-1985. Faced with the US and UK governments lead by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, their collusion was far greater than Laker could have possibly imagined, most dramatically when the leaders declared the need to protect ‘national interests’. In the resulting case Reagan become the first and only sitting president to ever dismiss a Grand Jury.

Synopsis

The film focuses on the incredible events of November 2017, beginning when Emerson Mnangagwa is fired and flees for his life across Mozambique. The story follows him as he impeaches Mugabe, forcing the repressive dictator to resign, and then as he returns triumphant, to his inauguration as President of Zimbabwe.