Drawn from a never before seen cache of personal footage compiled over the last 22 years, this is an intimate portrait of the Sri Lankan musician's remarkable journey from immigrant teenager in London to international popstar M.I.A., an artist who continues to shatter conventions.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2018 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere
Funk Queen Betty Davis changed the landscape for female artists in America. She “was the first…” as former husband Miles Davis said. “Madonna before Madonna, Prince before Prince”. An aspiring songwriter from a small steel town, Betty arrived on the '70s scene to break boundaries for women with her daring personality, iconic fashion and outrageous funk music. She befriended Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, wrote songs for the Chambers Brothers and the Commodores, and married Miles – startlingly turning him from jazz to funk on the album she named “Bitches Brew”. She then, despite being banned and boycotted, went on to become the first black woman to perform, write and manage herself.
Betty was a feminist pioneer, inspiring and intimidating in a manner like no woman before. Then suddenly - she just vanished. Betty Mabry Davis is a global icon whose mysterious life story has until now, never been told. Creatively blending documentary, animation and nonfiction techniques, this movie traces the path of Betty’s life, after years of trying, the elusive Betty, forever the free-spirited Black Power Goddess, finally allowed the filmmakers to creatively tell her story based on their conversations.
Official Selection IDFA 2017 - World premiere
Inspired by American touring blues acts like Muddy Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe and with the complicity of a 19-year old student from Teheran, in 1962 guitarist Alexis Korner and harmonica player Cyril Davies opened the Ealing Club, London's (and Britain's) first Rhythm and Blues venue.
Soon young music fans from all over the country start attending Alexis and Cyril's shows and sit-in during their set. The list of youngsters who learn the blues at the Ealing Club includes: Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Paul Jones, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Dick Taylor and Eric Burdon (just to name a few).
The Ealing Club, a.k.a. 'The Cradle of British Rock' (Mojo Magazine), a dingy and smokey concrete-floored basement barely mentioned in music history books will only last three years, but its pivotal role in nurturing the golden generation of Classic-rock musicians and kick-starting the British Blues movement remains undeniable.
When we started this journey several years ago, there was no expectation at all that Shirley would ever sing again. What initially attracted us to making the movie was Shirley’s deep commitment to English folk tradition, and her little-known involvement in arguably the most important field-recording trip of all time; back in 1959 with her then-lover, the iconic ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. The film was going to be about the past, and about the 30 years she had spent living without the thing she loved most. It’s been an absolute privilege to be with Shirley on this long journey back to her singing again, and along the way, the film has evolved into something we never expected.
Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival 2018 - International premiere
An ensemble slice of life in a diner, where rap lyrics become part of the drama.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Create Strand - World premiere
The Slits who formed in London in 1976 were the world's first all girl punk band. Contemporaries of bands such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols, they were the pioneering godmothers of the musical movement know as "Punky Reggae".
This documentary tells the story of the band and the lives of the women involved, from the band's inception in 1976 to the bands end in 2010 at the death of lead vocalist Ari Up.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - World premiere
Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival 2018
A story of a young man who has lost his words, his thoughts, and his gender identity. Those eyes are always sharp as knives, yet the secret inside him is no longer hidden, waiting to be free by himself.
Modern society is obsessed with social media. Online platforms provide us with a constant unwanted stream of other people’s opinions. What happens when it all gets too much? Cabaret superstars Bourgeois & Maurice offer us a solution in this comedy VR music video.
Shogun is an unsigned grime MC, with a determination to put Scottish rap on the map.
When you think of Grime music, Scotland probably isn’t the first place that springs to mind, but one Paisley-based 19 year old, Joe Heron AKA Shogun, is working hard to expand the scope of the UK’s most exciting genre. He's already racked up over 2 million views on YouTube.
Official Selection BFI London FIlm Festival 2017 - Create Strand
Rudolf Nureyev was in every sense 'Made In Russia'. It would be hard to imagine a character of such conflicting passion, ego, obsession, talent, triumph and tragedy emerging from anywhere other than Russia.
