Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Based on an unrealised film script written in 1964 for The Homosexual Law Reform Society (a British organisation that campaigned for the decriminalisation of homosexual relations between men), this piece merges drama and documentary into an impressionistic meditation on queer life under the law.
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 - World premirere
Winner - Best Documentary Short, London Short Film Festival 2018

Synopsis

Follow the lives of five untrained artists (painters) born in the slums who survived together from childhood in the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. Together they create incredible art that no one sees. Learn of their struggles and triumphs while viewing their beautiful art in the slum setting of Mukuru.

Synopsis

Inside Qatar’s labour camps, African and Asian migrant workers building the facilities of the 2022 World Cup compete in a football tournament of their own.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2017 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

A film about psychosis and surveillance. A composite of fact and fiction, the film draws upon real-life accounts of a schizophrenic disorder: the belief that ones thoughts are being transmitted and heard by others. Set against the proliferation of mobile phone masts in the urban and rural landscape, the film reveals a fragmented inner world of paranoid delusions and acute anxiety, off-set by revelations of mass surveillance and data gathering by government security agencies. Filming locations include a psychiatric video recording studio, an abandoned broadcast television station and a military base used for mass communications monitoring and interception.
Part clinical observation, part psychological horror, the film is driven by a tense and dark electronic score by Lord Mongo, and interweaves the flickering detritus of analogue tape, monitors and studio cameras with layers of sampled archive voices; forming a picture of a psychotic state of mind, entangled in an interconnected world.
Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2017 - World premiere

Synopsis

An exploration of Japan’s fascination with girl bands and their music, following an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2017 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

A short film about Autism and Police, featuring 2 autistic adults sharing their experiences with local Police in the UK . What are common misunderstandings ? What could be improved to help both the the Police and Autistic community?

Synopsis

Following a group of local schoolchildren as they learn of the Viking invasion of central Scotland and the subsequent establishment of the medieval kingdom of Strathclyde. How will the children react when they discover that Vikings and kings walked on the ground below their feet?

Synopsis

A moving portrait of the UK housing crisis, told through the experience of one family. Filmed over a year, Daisy-May is both director and daughter as her and her family fight to retain their dignity whilst they wait to be rehoused by the council. This is an extraordinary story of courage and determination, a story of family bonds which is both heart-breaking and life affirming, combining moments of tremendous tenderness and grit with some unexpected humour. HALF WAY offers an alternative narrative from the current exhausted media coverage of the housing crisis; it does not, and cannot, shy away from the harsh actualities of homelessness.

Synopsis

A conversational journey through the ongoing gentrification in a major borough of London’s East End. Previously a home for the poor and hub for a huge number of artists, Hackney has recently seen an extortionate rise in property prices, forcing a large part of the population to move further out.

Synopsis

It began as the story of Dutch art lover, Michel van Rijn. It ended in murder and scandal.
Michel van Rijn made millions smuggling stolen icons, artworks, and rare antiquities into Europe and the USA, evading Interpol and the CIA. Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s he lived a playboy Jet Set lifestyle, living large and wide, bolstered by the false claim that he was a descendant of Rembrandt. Michel, however, was eventually captured, then extradited and imprisoned.
Michel ended up working for Scotland Yard, turning on the smugglers and forgers he had previously conspired with, drinking himself almost to death, and losing his son. Through his pioneering website, he became a crusader for the art world, uncovering trails of Nazi gold, then exposing terrorist networks financed by black market art sales. Unsurprisingly, several contracts were put on Michel’s life, including one by the Taliban.
He then disappeared.
Now in hiding at a Mossad-protected Jewish hotel in Europe, estranged from his family and seven ex-wives, Michel is under investigation from the FBI for masterminding the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist, where two unarmed men stole $500m worth of Rembrandts and other Dutch paintings, that remain unrecovered, and the crime unsolved.

Synopsis

With exclusive access to six time Olympic gold medal winning athlete, Usain Bolt and his inner circle, and with previously unseen footage, this film tells the highs and lows of his real journey – the work and the dedication, the inspiring astounding unique and true story of the fastest man on Earth.

Synopsis

Originating with research undertaken at the Irish Film Institute Irish Film Archive, artist Duncan Campbell’s piece takes as a starting point a 1960s anthropological film study of rural Kerry to investigate and reframe contemporary Ireland.
In this work Campbell looks at some of the assumptions, ethics and misconceptions that frame the relationship between filmmakers and subjects. The piece is underpinned by extensive research into archival and documentary material, including Paul Hockings and Mark McCarty’s 1968 documentary film, 'The Village', alongside influential anthropological studies. As with much of Campbell’s work, this piece questions the validity of documentary form as historical representation, blurring fact and fiction, recording and interpretation.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand