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

Synopsis

Riaz Masih is a 51-year-old Christian sewer worker living in Lahore, Pakistan. Despite systemic discrimination and working for a pittance, he is determined, with the support of his wife Zarina, to educate their four children. After 27 years of informal labour, Riaz finally secures a job with the city sanitation department and makes the rare decision to take out life insurance. His children show great promise. Sahil dreams of becoming a civil servant, while Mehek earns a scholarship to Punjab College. Their younger children, Rahul and Manahil, are deaf and mute and each excels in their own way. Through his school, Rahul is exposed to a more affluent world, as many of his classmates come from influential families. Sometimes labelled a bully at school and in his neighbourhood, his emotional and moral development becomes a key thread of the story. Riaz, whose own father only completed secondary school, dreams of seeing his children graduate from university and transform the family’s future. The documentary follows Sahil’s gap year after disappointing exam results and explores family tensions, including Mehek running away from home and leaving school. The film exposes the entrenched caste and religious privilege that marginalises Christian Dalits in Pakistan.

Synopsis

How do we remember the past when our history has been faked? One man’s idea to rebuild a capital on the foundations of an unfinished city erased a collective memory, casting a dark shadow over Skopje's future identity.

Synopsis

Set across Kenya, a cinematic documentary that immerses the viewer in a world where ancestry and progress coexist in tension. In the rural heartlands, a tribal community embodies heritage through agriculture ritual and craft. In Mombasa, a young professional works at the intersection of technology and evolving infrastructure, facing constant change. A school student balances home and classroom life while imagining a future shaped by tradition and opportunity. Filmed in a 'fly-on-the-wall' style, without narration or talking heads, the film unfolds through observation: the pounding of grain, the rush of traffic, the laughter of children, the silence of ceremony. By weaving these strands together, TIPPING POINT asks a quietly profound question: At this cultural and economic crossroads, what does well-being mean, and is happiness being redefined?

Synopsis

In the summer of 1997, two 19 year old lovers set out from the Birmingham suburbs in a classic car. Their destination: the grave of Nick Drake, whose music had become a shared language between them and a comfort for their unacknowledged pain. This journey, captured in memory and reimagined on screen, becomes a meditation on youth, longing, and the quiet power of music to shape identity and connection where deeply hidden vulnerabilities can be shared. Interwoven with this personal narrative are intimate audio interviews with artists from different generations who reflect on how Drake’s music shaped their lives and creative paths. Their insights echo and deepen the emotional terrain of the road trip, creating a layered portrait of influence, absence, and resonance.

Synopsis

Filmed over seven years, this film humanises the life of a trans family as they navigate a culture war and rising political hostility towards trans rights. The film recounts the extraordinary story of a Yorkshire based businesswoman/amateur ballet dancer and her family as she battles to complete her transition while her rights to live in her new gender are increasingly called into question. It is a story of love and hope as Sophie and partner Sandi celebrate their achievements, overcome bureaucratic hurdles, have their fairytale wedding, and conceive a child. It’s a story of resilience as the family learns to deal with an outpouring of social media hatred. We share Sophie’s triumph as she gets the surgery that she’s waited years for and her alarm at a rise in transphobic hate crimes and a rollback of rights she thought were hers.

Synopsis

Luke Stoltman leaves behind a stable career in the oil and gas industry to guide his younger brother Tom through the brutal world of Strongman. Tom is a genetic phenomenon, built for the sport, but his greatest battle has always been internal, navigating life as an autistic man in a high-pressure, hyper-masculine arena. When their mother and primary carer, Sheila Stoltman, passes away, Luke steps into the role she left behind, becoming mentor, protector and father figure, bound by a promise to always look after Tom. As Tom rises rapidly through the ranks, silencing critics and defying expectations, Luke quietly wrestles with his own doubts, sacrifices and fading ambitions. Tom pushes toward fulfilling the promise he made to his mother, “Mum, I will win World’s Strongest Man”, while Luke searches for redemption of his own. It comes when he shocks the sport by winning Europe’s Strongest Man, proving he still belongs among the elite. The journey leads to the ultimate showdown: two brothers, head-to-head, at the pinnacle of Strongman. At its heart, this is not just a story about strength, but about family, sacrifice, and the unbreakable bond between brothers.

Synopsis

Four chapters in the tumultuous life of the celebrated and controversial 20th century US intellectual, writer, philosopher and political activist Susan Sontag, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography 'Sontag: Her Life' by Ben Moser.

Synopsis

A documentary presenting human-centered stories on infant mortality, highlighting how a UK-based innovation - featuring AI-powered machines - can help prevent infant health crises and save lives across borders. Recognised by the NHS, this medical breakthrough has the potential to reshape history and protect every precious breath. We'll meet: * A family in India that experienced the tragic loss of a newborn due to delayed care. * A British medical innovator developing AI-integrated machines to bridge gaps in neonatal surgery and monitoring. * A UK-based family whose child survived due to early access to this technology. This multi-narrative approach aims to emotionally engage global audiences while showcasing the real-world impact of medical innovation.

Synopsis

Bel was a Kenyan-Scottish woman who dreamt of singing to the world. A musician, singer and writer, she performed under the stage name, Heir of the Cursed and in 2021 was on the cusp of fame. But just as the world was about to discover her name, Bel took her own life, leaving poignant video diaries and a phone full of amazing songs. A Kenyan-Scottish woman fighting to be heard, a brilliant artist, still largely unknown. Her death, and a small yet beautiful body of work are her story now. Like Nick Drake who died at the age of 26 – Bel’s untimely death has changed her life story – the beginning and middle are in the shadow of its end, and the power and mystery of Bel’s music and life lie in the pathos of this story and its meanings. Whatever led Bel to take her own life was also at the heart of what powered her music, it was a part of who she was. This film tells the story of an artist on the cusp of stardom and her sister Leah’s determination to fulfil Bel's dream: releasing her record and sharing her with the world.

Synopsis

The extraordinary story of Richard “Ric” O’Barry, once the world’s highest-paid dolphin trainer, now their most passionate defender, risking his life and liberty to free these remarkable creatures from captivity. In the 1960s, Ric was America’s leading dolphin trainer at the Miami Seaquarium and the celebrated trainer behind the hit TV series Flipper, whose smiling stars enchanted a generation. Everything changed after the apparent suicide of one of the show’s dolphins, Kathie - a moment that shattered his beliefs and set him on a radical path from insider to activist. For over 50 years, Ric has led a global campaign against dolphin captivity. As founder of Dolphin Project, he has risked arrest, injury, and personal loss to rescue dolphins and expose the industry’s darkest secrets. Both celebrated and criticised, he remains steadfast that every captive dolphin can either be retired to a sanctuary or returned to the wild. Told through intimate family access, joyous underwater imagery, and covert filming, Ric’s mission has transformed a non-issue into a global movement. Now 85, he must ask: after a lifetime spent freeing others, can he finally set himself free?

Synopsis

This film follows the Fukushima disaster as it unfolds - minute by minute, from multiple perspectives. From the plant workers risking their lives to avert catastrophe, to survivors escaping devastation, to government officials racing against time to regain control. Leaked conversations between TEPCO and the plant expose panic, deception, and how close Japan came to irreversible devastation. Archival footage reveals the psychology of a nation- gleaming reactors symbolizing prosperity, propaganda videos, even children’s cartoons like Little Plutonium Boy, eerily juxtaposed with Fukushima’s grim reality. Epic, immersive, and definitive, this film blends raw testimony with breathtaking archive footage. Viewers will live through the disaster, experiencing its claustrophobia and terror. Dramatic recreations merge seamlessly with real footage, amplifying tension like a thriller. A ticking clock and rising radiation levels underscore the desperate efforts to contain the accident, while sound design, music, and haunting imagery convey the horror of nature turning against us—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout.

Synopsis

Following the director, Beryl Richards's adopted son Nathan/Joe’s journey from a one-year-old to adulthood, told from the viewpoints of parent and child. Joe wants to make this film so people ‘get’ him, know what it means to be neurodivergent, and what he has been able to achieve despite many challenges. Beryl shows the evolution of a family created from scratch that’s had to keep adapting. The challenge and recalibration of being a parent and a lifetime carer. The core of the story is told through 28 years of home movie footage- sparky, warm and funny as Nathan/Joe develops into the man he is today. Alongside, a growing boy is shown, much misunderstood and almost destroyed by the prejudice and ignorance surrounding neurodivergence. The family therapy received along the way offers some support, but also reveals how the family dynamic was influenced by Beryl’s own experience of childhood neglect. Beryl first saw 6-month-old Nathan on a VHS tape. She and husband Dave responded with a video welcoming him to their home. For the past 28 years Beryl has recorded “our feelings, our joy and our pain" so that Nathan could better understand his story later in life.