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

Synopsis

A heart-warming story about two marathon runners in Sierra Leone: Idrissa Kargbo and the country’s champion runner Mamie Konneh-Lahun. Their only sponsor is Jo Dunlop, an Australian aid worker with a big personality, and a passion for supporting the Sierra Leone’s young athletic talent. Jo’s dream is to get Idrissa and Mamie to as many high profile national and international competitions as she can. Though tragically, during the course of the film, Mamie defects after coming 20th in the London Marathon, leaving Jo and Idrissa heartbroken. Over 18 months of races, Jo and Idrissa formed a unique and touching friendship with the shared dream of bringing a story of positivity and hope to a country still struggling to recover from the devastating effects of the civil war. But their journey has been far from smooth; from near-hypothermia to malaria, death-threats and corruption, and an Ebola outbreak which affects them all, Idrissa and Jo have had to ght to keep their dream alive. And of course united in their hope for Mamie’s return. Through these stories, the film offers an intimate glimpse into life in Sierra Leone, which vibrantly features as a character in its own right.

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

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

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.

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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.

Synopsis

'Unwell' chronicles the descent into madness of award-winning BBC foreign correspondent Malcolm Brabant after he receives a routine yellow fever vaccine required for an assignment in Africa. After enduring a near fatal fever, he begins hallucinating and starts to believe he is the new Messiah. During this Jesus complex, he believes he is being directed by the ghosts of dead friends who, like him, covered the siege of Sarajevo. The psychosis disappears after six weeks, but Brabant suffers several relapses. The most significant one is captured on camera by Brabant himself as he is convinced the Second Coming has to be on television. This unique footage is supplemented by video diaries recorded by Brabant's Danish wife Trine Villemann, in order to document his transformation. Brabant's condition deteriorates and he spends months locked up in secure wards. The film is a paean to love and family bonds and contains an unexpected Hollywood ending.