Football is Charlie’s joy. When he has the ball at his feet, he can make magic happen - a gift that many teenage boys only dream of. Now the opportunity for Charlie to play professionally has come along. It looks like Charlie will be able to succeed where his father could not.
But Charlie has a secret, a secret locked in his heart. Now, with his future seemingly mapped out, the secret cannot stay hidden any longer. Charlie’s decision to reveal the truth tears his once united family apart and puts his friends in turmoil. No-one is quite sure of themselves or each other anymore and the road back to harmony is paved with obstacles, prejudices and confusion.
'52 Portraits' is an epic love song written to an art form. Dance.
'52 Portraits' is a series of moving image portraits of dancers accompanied by sung autobiographies. It captures the profound, funny and surprising power of their subjects, revealing the stories, thoughts and struggles of dancers in an unexpected way.
Conceived by choreographer Jonathan Burrows, composer Matteo Fargion and video maker Hugo Glendinning. The idea behind the project was to catch both the individual and unexpected brilliance of individual performers, but also the larger collective concerns of dance artists, which accumulate over the course of the 52 films. Originally conceived as a digital project, it began with ideas of the familiar; the common; the shared technological situation. These short gestural portraits were released online every week over a year. These videos now form the chapters of this film.
What emerges in this film is a political and sociological gesture, interrogating the numerous ways artists are subject to hierarchies, stereotypes and marginalisation of any kind. The result is a hugely varied and personal story of what it means to be a dancer.
Alexia and Kat are a lesbian couple who are trying to start a family together. After Alexia’s miscarriage and news that she is infertile, the couple become distant, their relationship is on the brink, until they come across an abandoned baby in the woods.
Revisiting the audition process for the character of Kanchi in Powell and Pressburger’s 1947 'Black Narcissus'. The coveted role went to actor Jean Simmons.
By auditioning only Indian ex-pat or first-generation British Asian women and non-binary individuals, filmmaker Michelle Williams Gamaker re-casts a Kanchi for the 21st Century, who crucially speaks.
A lyrical short documentary featuring writer and Scots Makar (poet laureate) Jackie Kay. Jackie explores what identity means today as a Black, Scottish, lesbian writer, revealing how storytelling and imagination can offer us a way to live with – and grow to love – our many identities.
A film created from the treasure trove of BFI archive. The story traverses a century of gay experiences, encompassing persecution and prosecution, injustice, love and desire, identity, secrets, forbidden encounters, sexual liberation and pride. The soundtrack weaves the lyrics and music of John Grant and Hercules & Love Affair with the images and guides us intimately into the relationships, desires, fears and expressions of gay men and women in the 20th century- a century of incredible change.
Starting with the first gay relationship on film released in 1919, 'Different From the Others', this documentary offers a wealth of unknown newsreel and amateur film from the 20s and 30s, the sub textual references in 40s cinema, the arrests and prosecutions of gay men for ‘gross indecency’ in the 50s, the early gay rights marches and decriminalisation of the 60s and 70s, the campaigns for an equal age of consent and against section 28, the Pride movement and AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s, the sexual liberation of the 00s queer and transgender scene and the chemsex, gay parenting and marriage campaign of recent years.
Official Selection Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017 - World premiere
Two trans people and their journey to learning to love their bodies.
A film about the effects hormones can have on your body as a trans person. Mainstream narratives often sensationalise the experiences of trans people with medical interventions, but this film explores the issue of hormones in more depth, in an honest, bold and vulnerable way.
On survival and transformation inspired by Catherine Lord’s memoir 'The Summer of Her Baldness' a moving and irreverent account of her experience of breast cancer and the chemically induced devastation of chemotherapy. This piece draws into focus the intersection of queer identity, cross-generational dialogue, illness, and the fine line between alternately poisonous and curative substances.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand
Atom Spirit explores the increased interconnectedness of advanced technology and nature within the age of the Anthropocene. The film is set in Trinidad and Tobago, in a location that serves as a nexus point where desire, ecology and queerness intersect.
Atom Spirit is a film that reconceptualises our relationships with the environment, non-human animals and each other. Shedding scientific taxonomies and building queer ecologies in their stead, the film considers the possibility and necessity for new means of being in the world.
In post-WW II Finland, homosexuals were officially classified as mentally ill, weak and feminine. Conducting any homosexual act or producing homosexual material was illegal. Gay men were beaten by the police, thrown in jail like criminals and often sent to asylums for “treatment”. In the middle of it all was one man, quietly using his talent in an inhospitable societal environment, fantasizing about a different world through the tip of an artist’s pen: Touko Laaksonen, to be iconically known across the globe by his nom de guerre, Tom of Finland. Tom of Finland began secretly creating a completely new variety of homoerotic art for gay men. Proud, healthy and über-masculine. His work was sexually liberated. Totally shameless. Gleefully and aggressively trouncing the norm. His art fanned the flames of a revolution, emboldening a new generation of homosexuals to stand up and celebrate what they were: Men.
Growing up in 1950s England in an intolerant and uninformed world, Chris Winters struggles to fit into the gender roles dictated by society.
A more than tough childhood left behind, Chris meets dream woman Julie, and life lightens, but the growing feeling that theirs is a life half lived haunts Chris.
