Projects in genres: Asian

Synopsis

Filmed over the course of a year, this film follows the story of one eight year old boy, and his friends and neighbours, all of whom live in the caves beside the destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Synopsis

Madhabilata is a personal film, a journey to touch the wave of silence between me and my biological mother. An intricate embroidery of desire, suffering, denial and ‘looking back’. A painful hide 'n' seek game between me and my mother, between 'real' and 'unreal','self' and 'other' .

Synopsis

Tooting Broadway, is a film about what we are willing to do for the people we love, but deeper than that it focuses on the way we live our lives and the choices we feel we must make to survive. What is important to you? Your country, your family or your friends? Can you serve more than one master or must you choose? 2009, on the eve of the Tamil Parliament Protests, a mother reaches out to her estr...anged son, Arun, to return home to stop his younger brother from making a potentially catastrophic decision. Meanwhile, a seemingly meaningless murder will have profound consequences for Arun, his old friends and his family. Arun has 24 hours to make things right, but his commitment to his new life is tested as old loyalties are brought to the fore and threaten to drag Arun into a world he has sworn to leave behind him.

Synopsis

When you change where you are do you change who you are? Set in modern day Tehran, and the UK, I Am Nasrine follows the paths of Nasrine and Ali, sister and brother in a comfortable, middle class Iranian home. When Nasrine has a run-in with the police, the punishment is more than she bargained for. Nasrine and Ali set out for the UK, torn about leaving behind their home and all that they know, embarking on a reluctant exile. Still, for Nasrine, there is undeniable excitement about the prospect of starting a new life in the West. Nasrine is quick to settle into her new life, making friends, forming bonds, including Nichole from the gypsy/travelers community. All the while her brother Ali struggles with the realities of life in the UK and his awakening sexuality. Then comes 9/11. Things spiral further out of control when an unimaginable tragedy occurs. Nasrine must discover incredible courage within her to accept what fate has dealt her; discovering that the end of her journey is really just the beginning. Can hope, simple untainted hope, overcome the darkest of tragedies? I Am Nasrine explores these questions and more, and offers answers that are sure to surprise.

Synopsis

Prodigy detective Mitsuko Unagi is on the hunt for a notorious serial killer known only as "Eleven". 10 years earlier, on February 29th 2006, a series of murders began, involving 11 randomly selected victims killed simultaneously in various parts of Tokyo. The killings continue over the next decade, leaving the police with no evidence, no witnesses, and the killer always one step ahead. But now something has changed, and the killer has changed his pattern, giving Detective Unagi the one chance to finally get closer to solving the mystery of the Random 11

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The UK is known as ‘Billet’ in Bangladesh, a desired place where millions of people want to go. This film reflects my personal journey to Billet, or Blighty, and explores what it is like to make a home to a foreign country.

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Two medical interns investigate a patient brought to hospital. When they search into her past, they discover disturbing events that put their lives in danger. At first rivals, the interns finally team up to uncover the secret of Patient 17.

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A drag queen and a woman in a burkha get stuck in a lift - and realise they have more in common than they thought.

Synopsis

Taking its name from an alternative reading of the name for the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kannon, KanZeOn, which can be translated as "she who hears the cries of the world", is an unorthodox but utterly magical meditation on sound and the ritual and philosophical role it plays in Japanese Buddhism. Filmed in Kyushu, the film looks at, and more importantly listens to, three very special Japanese musicans: Akinobu Tatsumi, the young Buddhist priest and custodian of a temple outside of Kumamoto City who moonlights as a hip-hop DJ while indulges his love of beat boxing in the remote forests; Eri Fujii, who has devoted her life to the mastery of the sho, a rare and ancient Chinese bamboo wind instrument evoking the cry of the phoenix, and Akihiro Iitomi, a master of Noh theatre and a kotsuzumi drum player whose love of jazz almost matches that of his passion for Japan’s traditional performing arts. As a documentary, KanZeOn does not seek to explain as much as to enlighten, taking the viewer on a hypnotic sensual journey from the timeless to the modern by way of a mystical parade of images that resonate seamlessly with the sounds.

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This film was made collaboratively with three former child soldiers in Nepal. They tell their stories of why they joined the Maoist rebel war and take us back to their homes in the stunning mountains in remote districts of Nepal to meet their families and explain why they feel they had to join.

Synopsis

The Boy in the Tree is a short film about people’s desires and how people strive to achieve those desires under adverse circumstances. 'Raise yourself to such heights of greatness, that before he decides your fate, God, himself will ask you, "What is your wish?", from Khudi (The Self) by Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

Synopsis

Award-winning director Weijun Chen’s new series Law of the Dragon leaves China's cities and heads to the country to examine the impact of the massive changes in China's politics, economy and society on the judicial system in action. This series takes a fresh look at this vast and culturally rich country, examining how justice is served in rural areas so remote and isolated that the villagers have almost no contact with, and are deeply mistrustful of, the central government. Principally following the austere Judge Chen as he travels around the rural and sparsely populated Xuan-en province, resolving the grievances of the residents and dispensing nuggets of Confucian-Communist wisdom, the series will immerse itself in what matters most to the people who make up much of China’s billion strong population. This is an insightful, refreshing but not rose-tinted look at how justice is being served at grass roots level in this vast and beautiful region.