Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

“Filmfarsi was the cinema of a nation with a split personality”, says filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht in this film-critical history of Iran under the Shah. Khoshbakht’s found-footage essay film salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution. These films defined Iranian cinema in the 1960s and '70s, when the industry shared an equal percentage of the market with the USA. Little more than VHS rips remain. Khoshbakht here uncovers that which was thought destroyed. A cinema of titillation, action and big emotions, which also presented a troubling mirror for the country, as Iran struggled to reconcile its religious traditions with the turbulence of modernity, and the influences of the West. The often cheap, sleazy and derivative films offer an insight into Iran’s psyche. Among the scratched reels, some keystones of Iran’s extraordinary film culture emerge, too: Gheysar, whose title design was done by a young Abbas Kiarostami; the work of director Samuel Khachikian, a progenitor of Iranian noir; and The Deer, a film which more than any other symbolises the historic violent turns in Iran’s recent past. Filmfarsi presaged a revolution, and it became one of its first victims. — Yusef Sayed

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Built by award-winning VR creators and an Oscar-winning practical effects team, FLY enables you to become a time-travelling pilot - from the earliest imaginings of Leonardo Da Vinci, to the Wright Brothers’ success on Kitty Hawk Beach, to piloting Concorde and, finally, into one imagined future of flight.

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Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy designed New Gourna in 1954, introducing ecological principles for mud architecture to Egypt. He dreamt that rural populations might have sustainable lives. Stills and an experimental soundtrack take a haunting look at efforts from the 1940s in sustainability in the Middle East. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Perspectives

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A film on on the lives, loves and dreams of contemporary Chinese and Europeans, showing how they are both very different, yet at the same time very much the same.

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An optimistic declaration of a young seven-year-old's truth.

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Geoff, Dan and Isaac are three wheelchair users who embark on a mission to conquer the Swiss Alps, and prove that having a disability won’t tame their sense of adventure. Information on Upcoming Screenings:

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To the right, a distorting face inside a rectangle tries to avoid being classified as human - but fails! To the left, algorithms including Boolean operators seek to refine a description of image content with varying amounts of confidence.

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Based on the memoir written in 2017 by Sid Luft, the third of Judy Garland's five husbands, about their years together, during which he was involved with her film A STAR IS BORN and her career as a concert performer. Official Selection Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2019 - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Create Strand

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An approach to local history unfolding. The film foregrounds quiet, tender engagement, forms of love, absence, and ritual. A deliberate lack of language underlines recurring inadequacies to express uproot and deeply felt emotions engendered. A LOVE considers individual and collective loss, value, and necessity for communal recognition. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

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A powerful film that interrogates and challenges stereotypes surrounding the role of the black father in modern society.

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HANGING BY A THREAD is my final BA Animation film, highlighting the struggle of loneliness and irrational thought.

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Governing the Northern Irish countryside, Hydebank Wood currently houses 104 young male offenders. Ryan, currently serving a 5-year sentence, has formed an unlikely bond with the prisons flock of sheep. Through their interactions, Ryan attempts to come to terms with the brutal act that led him here. Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival 2020