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
BALLET POINTE SHOES is a short period fantasy and original fairy tale written by Gisela Pereira, inspired by the 18th and 19th century in England and the red shoes tale. It tells the story of a ballerina who breaks her pointe shoes and looks for a shoemaker to fix them. She encounters a magic shoemaker who is able to repair the pointe shoes giving them a life of its own.
When your memory fades, your grip on reality becomes fragile and the sense of self slowly slips away. In a synagogue hall in North West London, a group of elderly people gather to find release. Using music and song they try to reconnect with themselves. Through the poetic use of poignant personal photographs and carefully assembled voiced-over memories, this film takes us into the emotional heart of these people, coping with the onset of Dementia.
Transcending the sound and visual of the drum, using nature’s most destructive forces fire and water as catalysts for destruction and creating a mood piece of raw, ritualistic, drumming phenomena.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Cult Strand
The North London band, Wolf Alice (who take their collective name from an Angela Carter story) have had a rise to prominence that might have been bends-inducing were it not for their tightness as a group.
In Summer of 2015, the deliciously dark, hook-and-riff-filled sound of their debut album, My Love is Cool inspired NME magazine to crown it, “the debut of the decade”.
Director Michael Winterbottom joins the band on the road, capturing sixteen different gigs and daily life backstage. The resulting tour film, which records the tour from the point of view of a new member of their crew, is a refreshingly unusual one with unexpected twists; revealing the relentless, sometimes unglamorous graft of playing loud, hot, physical music, night after night. But the film also mesmerises, offering a structure that reveals more, at every stop on the road, of the nuanced musicality of the full band, and the bewitching talent and charisma of front woman, Ellie Rowsell.
Official Selection Berlinale 2017 - Generation 14plus
Charting the phenomenal journey that took Manchester band Oasis from releasing their first single in 1994, to record-breaking sell-out shows at Knebworth Park in 1996, where the band played to 125,000 fans per night. The story of one of the UK's biggest bands, told in all their intense and volatile glory, using rare and unseen material and exclusive interviews.
"The funny thing is, after all that fucking mouthing off about how we were going to be the biggest band in the world, we actually went and did it...and it was a piece of piss" Noel Gallagher
A feature length film exploring themes of identity, culture and the construction of history. Shot on 35mm film in various Californian deserts that provide a stage in which to re-enact the negotiations of an archaeologist from Cairo with a members of tribe who guard ancient culture hidden in tombs lost in the desert.
The scenario for the film was adapted from the 1969 Egyptian film 'A Night of Counting the Years' directed by Shadi Abdel Salam, creating a layered story that echoes from ancient Egypt to the diversity of desert ecology and recent archaeological digs for lost Hollywood film sets. Working in collaboration with the musician and composer Tom Challenger a new choral composition was created and recorded for the film, drawing on traditional and modern acoustic techniques to reflect the shifting sands of the desert landscapes.
A journey through a sugary wonderland, following a boy and his mother as they wander through a frozen forest, meeting a bear, wolves. Wandering through magical white landscapes there are moments of danger and wonder. All ending in a mothers hug and a sugar cube.
Sergei Polunin, a young Ukrainian boy, joined the UK's prestigious Royal Ballet at the age of 13 and became a principal at 19. Polunin was the youngest-ever star of the Royal Ballet, but in January 2012 he took the dramatic decision to walk away from his classical ballet career.
An immersive personal portrait of the controversial ballet superstar directed by Oscar-nominated Steven Cantor, with stunning clips from visionary director and photographer David LaChapelle and Emmy-award winner Ross MacGibbon.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Thrill Strand
Every night, Bob is transfixed by the vision of a woman dancing outside his window; every morning, he struggles to make sense of it. The line between a leap (of faith) and a pas de deux grows increasingly fine as the dance beckons.
Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2016 - Short Cuts - World premiere
Following The Rolling Stones’ tour of early 2016 through 10 Latin American cities as the band attempt to pull off a once in a lifetime open air concert in Havana, Cuba.
A road movie that celebrates the revolutionary power of Rock n Roll - exhilarating and exploratory, the film chronicles the tour, local culture and unique bond that exists between the Latin American people and The Rolling Stones.
The film combines electrifying live performance footage with intimate insight into the world of The Rolling Stones. A portrait of a band still at the very top of their game, a gang that have seen it all but remain as hungry as ever to break new ground.
Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2016 - Gala Presentations - World premiere
Everyone thinks Brian Epstein walked into The Cavern Club on Mathew Street one afternoon and discovered The Beatles — a raw, unpolished, amateur band in a dingy basement club in Liverpool England. While Epstein did make The Beatles famous worldwide, he didn’t 'discover' them. Beatlemania was born long before Epstein came on the scene. The Beatles were already the number one standout group in Liverpool’s massive Merseybeat scene drawing thousands of screaming fans to their shows.
The Merseybeat movement started with the help of the ingenuity of a number of local promoters, lead by the infamous Sixth Beatle, Sam Leach. This is his story, for without him, there may have never been a Beatles.
Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2016 - TIFF Docs - World premiere