Projects in genres: Human Rights

Synopsis

When Madge Elliot complained about the announced closure of her local train station in Hawick, her mother told her to do something about it, and that’s just what she did. It’s Quicker By Hearse The Tale of the Petitioning Housewife, the Protesting Schoolboy and the Campaign Trail Student tells the story of Elliot who, together with her 11-year-old son Kim, Harry Brown the piper and Edinburgh University Railway Society president Bruce McCartney, marched to Downing Street to deliver a petition of 11,768 signatures on 18 December 1968. When final closure was penciled for January 7 1969, Madge and her campaign group continued their protest by posting a coffin on the last train to leave Hawick station and travel to London. The coffin was emblazoned with the words ‘Waverley Line – born 1848 killed 1969’ and was addressed to the then Minister of Transport Richard Marsh.

This work investigates how the national changes recommended in the infamous Beeching report, titled The Reshaping of British Railways, impacted Elliot and her local community. Like Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel Waverley (the railway lines namesake), Elliot’s grassroots campaign raised questions of the need for social progress that does not reject the traditions of the past.

Synopsis

When Criticism of faith and the freedom to offend is outlawed by the Politically Correct Militia. Bella and her gang of cyber punks push Darwinism door to door. But with violent agnostic thugs in the street, and the terrorist "Atheist Revolutionary Army" attacking the liberal establishment. Bella and her friends are driven underground into a dark fetish existence, where the future and the past collide, allegiances are strained, and old scores must be settled. In this frighteningly bizarre and surreal feature film. Full on gothsploitation This is a truly independent film. Created by a bunch of friends about freedom of expression when all around us freedoms are being suppressed by those who claim to be offended.

Synopsis

Having left family and parents behind, teenagers from Afghanistan, Iran and Ethiopia find themselves caught in limbo at a Danish Asylum Centre. Their everyday life is filled with waiting and uncertainty, whilst staff prepare for one of the toughest days on the job.

Synopsis

Stop the Show is a reference to international relations and arms trade. The campaign was created in support of a United Nations treaty to regulate the arms trade between countries and reduce worldwide killings through firearms.

Synopsis

The lives of three men collide in a London toilet with unforeseen consequences - yet this could happen in 42 countries globally. It’s a ticking time bomb nobody wants to discuss. Will you...?

Synopsis

A pitch-black comedy about Minnie the oddball owner of a Euthanasia Centre and her desperate attempts to keep it from closing.

Synopsis

Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison for a satirical performance in a Moscow cathedral. But who is really on trial in a case that has gripped the nation and the world beyond, three young artists or the society they live in?

Synopsis

When Salma, a young girl in South India, reached puberty, her parents locked her away. Millions of girls all over the world share the same fate. Twenty-five years later, Salma has fought her way back to the outside world to become the most famous female poet in South India.

Synopsis

Jumah is about to turn 16 and is already in need of a fresh start. Burdened with the shameful legacy of a past as a child soldier in the Congo, he lives with his adoptive mother in west London, where he struggles to keep a lid on his history of violence. One night, enjoying a rare carefree evening out with a new friend, Jumah witnesses something that draws him seemingly inescapably into his old ways. As he and others around him begin to question whether he can ever stop being a soldier, he’s set on a path to find out who he truly wishes to be. Already a short filmmaker of some note, Rob Brown has assembled a strong British cast that he has directed with restraint and grace, remaining unafraid to confront the audience with his characters’ culpability and social responsibility. The resulting film is a beautifully realised and moving take on the British urban thriller. (BFI LFF)

Synopsis

With one man’s wedding moments away, he and his best friend confront their future.

Synopsis

Shot in England and Nigeria this evocative film builds on the lives of African women living in the UK separated from their families.
The stories are based on news reports and Joy's own life, including voicemails left on her answer-machine by the legendary singer Nina Simone, her self proclaimed ‘Spiritual Mother’.

Synopsis

The Runner is a film about endurance. It is the story of Salah Ameidan, a champion runner from Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, whose journey transformed him from an athlete into the symbol of a national liberation movement. 

Forced to join Morocco's Junior Athletics team at 14, he was soon an international champion. But while he won gold medals for Morocco, he and his family were being arrested, detained and tortured in prison by Morocco for their independence activism.

In 2003, as he won a crucial race in France, he pulled out the Sahrawi flag - illegal in Morocco. He immediately became both a refugee and a hero to his people. Even in France, he suffers attacks, and his family are harassed, detained, tortured and even killed by the Moroccan regime.

The Runner follows Salah over three critical years in his life. As he turns 30, the Arab Spring is born in a protest camp in Western Sahara. The film looks at the burden of being a hero and asks "How long, before you stop running"?