Projects in genres: Black and with status: Pre-production

Synopsis

A non-linear iterated body of work investigating the sonic, visual and haptic frequencies of images, ancestral memory, transmission, oral tradition, and metaphors of radio technologies as sites of possibility for the African diaspora.

Synopsis

Two young brothers on the run with their father, a decorated Marine, who is on a rescue mission to save his boys from an unhuman threat. As their journey takes them in increasingly dangerous and unexpected directions, the boys will need to confront hard truths and leave their childhoods behind.

Synopsis

When the wife of Arsenal striker Brian Johnson died in childbirth, Johnson was at the top of his game with the world at his feet. Now, 30 years on, penniless, jobless and living on benefits, he manages the worst Sunday football team ever – the hapless Deportivo Wanka Football Club. And with a new record five-year losing streak, and no sign of a goal in the last 43 matches, they occupy the unenviable position at the bottom of all of Hackney’s ten leagues and if they end up last again, they’ll be removed from the league forever. It doesn’t help that the line-up of players include; his estranged son David who had trials with Arsenal but never showed up; Deano the goal keeper with a prosthetic hand and a fear of diving; Pingu, a brilliant but narcoleptic dwarf midfielder and a further assortment of violent, stupid and overweight underachievers more interested in the half-time burger van than scoring a goal. So when Brian’s life catches up with him in the form of a pitch-side heart attack, he’s brought before a football mad Almighty super-keen on meeting every passing ex-pro and coaching a football team to victory for one game (preferably Manchester United). Realising that he must do something to right his wrongs, Brian exploits God’s obsession with the beautiful game and makes a deal; he’ll put his soul on the line if God will accompany him back to earth and help coach the team to safety and give Brian one last chance to be a proper Dad to David. God agrees but there is one immutable rule; If Brian succeeds, he’ll pick up where he left off, but if he fails, his soul goes straight to Lucifer and damnation, the universal law and the price of a second chance. So Brian and God return to Earth and secure the victory extending Brian's life, but on the cusp of returning to Heaven, God learns that Lucifer has not only taken the vacant managerial position of Deportivos bitterest rivals, Salem FC but also talked Brian into signing over his soul. God, now feeling guilty for having served up Brian on a plate to the Devil, returns to Earth in recompense to help Brian undo his pact with Lucifer. However Lucifer double crosses the Lord into raising the stakes – and God ends up gambling on not just saving Brian’s soul but the souls of the entire world all on the outcome of one football match. Now all that stands between Brian and redemption is the Devil. And all that stands between the Devil and seven billion souls is God and the hapless footballing skills of one Deportivo Wanka FC. The final battle between darkness and light has just been dropped at the feet of a Sunday football team. God help us.

Synopsis

A young Nigerian man is forced to address a secret he has harbored from his parents during a traditional, family gathering. Feature adaptation of Tomisin Adepeju's short film 'The Good Son'

Synopsis

Michael X (born Michael de Freitas) emerged as a leader in the Black Power movement in the 1960s. He was instrumental in organising the first outdoor Notting Hill Carnival and became friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In 1969 he became the leader of a Black Power commune in London but when it burnt down he fled to his native Trinidad. He set up another commune but that also burnt down in a fire. The bodies of two people, including his cousin Joe Skerritt, were discovered and he was sentenced to death for Skerritt’s murder in 1972 and was hanged in 1975. The case has been the subject of several conspiracy theories.

Synopsis

Set against the backdrop of a giant hurricane that flattened Galveston, Texas in 1900. Local black champion Little Arthur must go head-to-head not only against prejudiced social and relational divides, but with a ringer from Chicago – Jim McBride – a dirty-fighting racist hired by the local Sporting Club to do one thing: Kill Little Arthur and restore the championship to a white fighter. As with the real Jack Johnson, Little Arthur further defies social constructs by being in a forbidden relationship with a white woman. Based on a Joe Landsdale novella that is inspired by the real life story of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson was recently granted a posthumous pardon by President Donald Trump from his conviction for violating the Mann Act in 1910 at the height of the Jim Crow era in the USA.

Synopsis

A multi strand story following the lives of five children and their teacher at an average suburban school. It follows the pain, hopes, joy, fear and despair of these six lives as they each travel their own life journeys and cross each other's universes, searching for an understanding of what they're going through and the meaning of their own souls. Our story begins with news filtering through and the sadly familiar footage of another knife related incident and the loss of yet another life; senselessly taken in a meaningless act of random violence. Jump back three months to the beginning of that term and we pick up and begin to follow the lives of five very different children and their teacher. We, the audience, follow the story knowing one of the children, whose life we are now privy to, is destined to become the child lost to a statistic and have his or her life stolen far too young and much too soon. Following the story to its inevitable conclusion, we touch traces of the pain, sorrow, confusion and rage of what we, as a society cannot, and should not, continue to close our eyes to or turn away from.