In the jungles of Borneo, an Iban father on the cusp of old age begins a river journey to seek medical help for his sick child. Along the way, the boy is troubled by recurring visions of a strange figure who appears on the river bank. As the journey progresses, father and son are drawn inexorably to a final encounter with the mythical 'transformed' shaman who dwells deep inside the jungle.
Semangat was made by working closely with one Iban longhouse community from Sarawak, Malaysia with whom the story was devised and filmed. Set in the jungles of Borneo, the basis of the film explores the conflict that exists between ancient animist beliefs and modern approaches to illness. The main protagonists of the film are a real father and son, and a retired shaman from this community.
Semangat is a micro-budget hybrid docu-fiction film funded by The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation, The UK Film Council/CTBF John Brabourne Award and Screen South. It has been produced under the creative guidance of award winning filmmaker, Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love). It has been co-produced with The National Film and Television School.
Sleep Furiously is set in a small farming community in mid Wales, about 50 miles north of Dylan Thomas’ fictional village of Llareggub, a place where Koppel’s parents – both refugees – found a home. This is a landscape and population that is changing rapidly as small scale agriculture is disappearing and the generation who inhabited a pre-mechanised world is dying out.
The central character in the film is John Jones who, once-a-month, drives the library van around the Trefeurig community, from farm to farm, collecting and delivering books. This bright yellow van becomes both literally and metaphorically a vehicle of stories – stories which take us on a poetic and profound journey into a world of endings and beginnings; a world of stuffed owls, sheep and fire. Allied to a soundtrack by the revered electronic musician Aphex Twin Sleep Furiously has been described as 'lyrical film making at its best'.
A young girl sleeps, her dreams unfolded by another's hand - we are caught, by accident, at the back of her mind, emptying out as something tries to fill it.
Storage is the story of an autistic 19-year-old and the relationship with his father.
Jason is isolated by his autism; his father loves him but is unable to break through Jason's defences to communicate this or anything else.
Jason, meanwhile, boxes up everyday objects each box representing certain experiences he needs to control. When items suddenly go missing from the storage boxes, Jason's autistic world is forced to rub up against a more alien one, ours.
On a winter's night in 1980, American servicemen stationed at an RAF base, witnessed some 'unexplained lights' in Rendlesham Forest. The incident has since become Britain's most famous UFO mystery with abounding rumours of conspiracies and cover-ups. Some argue that the incident was a hoax whilst others believe that the forest is a doorway to another dimension.
Maintaining a balance between celebration and criticality, this film revisits the forest, thirty years later, in search of similarly 'inexplicable' events.
The Beginning of Light is a mute choreographed film, using 2 poems. The first tells of a young woman, who, devastated by the death of her lover, finally lets him go. In the second Poem, her moods lightens, but a Young Man watches her unseen.
Shot at the windswept hill top Labyrinth sculpture park, Cragside, Northumberland.
A three minute experimental video, featuring the sculptures of David Salkeld. Utilising 3D animation as an experimental visual poem, to an ambient musical sound track by the Director Michael Salkeld.
From concept to premiere a documentary about the making of British Independent feature film Bollywood Queen - from the point of view of an aspiring feature filmmaker Giada D.
The Mapmaker is a short film based on a suicide. It is a series of assumptions after the fact - it is told in still images linked to a third person prose narration. The film explores a hostile environment and makes some vague poetic presumptions on the thought processes of woman as she proceeds to her self termination.
Based on an actor who suffers from an identity crisis with his film noir private detective character, whom I shall fondly refer to as - The Mole (his character actually wears a facial mole!).
