Projects in genres: Human Rights

Synopsis

An investigation into the truth behind the murder of Guatemalan cleric and human rights activist Bishop Juan Gerardi, who was killed in 1998 just days after trying to hold the country's military accountable for the atrocities committed during its civil war. The shocking murder of Gerardi in the aftermath of the Guatemalan Civil War sets the ground for a powerful battle between justice and corruption in this political crime thriller Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2020 - Spotlight Documentary - World premiere

Synopsis

An aspiring teenage rapper from Afghanistan, finds himself stuck in Athens with a group of friends. Through music and poetry he tries to make sense of the world around him. Official Selection Aspen Shortfest 2020 - Winner Best Documentary Official Selection HotDocs 2020

Synopsis

A gritty Northern LGBTQ comedy-drama. Set in Blackpool in 1953, two young gay Yorkshire miners, Eddy and Tommy, are holidaying there and meet transvestite, James Elbridge, who is summoning up the courage to do the fabled walk from pier to pier.

Synopsis

Edgar Combrink, a perpetual re-offender, is released back to the gang ridden Cape Flats to a family he hardly knows. To a forgotten suburb rife with unemployment and social decay in one of the most unequal cities in the world; Cape Town. Now that his daughter is starting high school, he needs to resist the ever present pull of crime, if he wants to see her graduate.

Synopsis

Former Guantánamo detainee, Mohamedou Ould Salahi, and his guard, Steve Wood, reunite in Mauritania 13 years after last seeing each other, rekindling an unlikely relationship that profoundly changed their lives. Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2020 - World premiere Official Selection Camerimage 2020

Synopsis

Three-time Academy Award® nominee Johnny Depp plays celebrated war photographer W. Eugene Smith in a real life David vs Goliath story, pitting Smith against a powerful corporation responsible for poisoning the people of Minamata, Japan in 1971. New York, 1971. W. Eugene Smith (Johnny Depp) is a celebrated photo-journalist and photo-essayist, but he feels devoid of inspiration. He is at such a low ebb he even considers suicide. Then a Japanese-American woman Aileen (Minami) shows up to convince him to come to the Japanese coastal city of Minamata, whose community has been ravaged by mercury poisoning, the result of decades of gross industrial negligence by Japan’s Chisso Corporation. Eugene eventually agrees to go, with the reluctant and secret support of Life Magazine head Robert Hayes (Bill Nighy). With Aileen, Smith immerses himself in the community, documenting the people’s efforts to live with Minamata Disease and their passionate fight to achieve recognition and compensation from Chisso. It is a life-changing experience — one which brings Eugene redemption, love, new purpose and his greatest-ever photograph. A photograph that will change the world and provide desperately needed fuel to the fledgling environmental protection movement. 'Minamata' is a moving redemptive story of how one man’s powerful photograph impacted the world, yet in order to find it he had to open his heart. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Berlinale Special - World premiere

Synopsis

Forensic Architecture meticulously reconstruct an accident involving a boat full of migrants close to the European coast. The work is based on video material recorded by artist and survivor Amel Alzakout as the boat was sinking. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

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On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy is it to go shopping? BAFTA Film Awards 2021 - Winner - Best British Short Film Academy Awards 2021 - Nomination - Best Short Film (Live Action)

Synopsis

Haunted by the ghost of war, a stoic Syrian Barber is trying to build a home for himself and his family on a remote Scottish island. He must find a way to survive this new unfamiliar life and protect the memory of Syria for his young children. Official Selection Sheffield Doc/Fest 2021 - World premiere

Synopsis

A beekeeper on the island of Anglesey faces losing her ancestral home to the development of a nuclear power plant.

Synopsis

Based on the book 'The Reason I Jump' written by Naoki Higashida, a non-verbal autistic Japanese boy. Translated from Japanese in 2013 by acclaimed novelist David Mitchell, the book is now a worldwide bestseller, offering an illuminating and life-enhancing guide to Planet Autism – a planet that has very different laws from the one most inhabit. The book, written when its author was unknown and only 13, is now a bestseller in 27 languages, and has become one of the world’s most widely-read guides to Autism, offering an extraordinary passport to another world. The book's question-and-answer format gives a remarkable insight into the thoughts and feelings of an autistic person who cannot talk; a Rosetta stone that allows us to hear what it’s like to be autistic. This feature documentary is a cinematic translation of the experiences revealed in the book, weaving Naoki’s writings around stories of non-verbal autistic people across the globe, immersing us in their unique sensory worlds, full of intensity, richness, and beauty - and sometimes shadows and terror. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere Grierson Awards 2022 - Winner - Best Single Documentary – International

Synopsis

A creative documentary about the relationship between fathers in prison and their children at home. In addition to the focus of presenting three incarcerated fathers, we gain insight into the changed lives of their families and children. As we become familiar with their daily lives, we witness the distance and even the closeness that grows between the inmates and their families. As a way of keeping contact, the inmates write fairy tales for their kids which we then make into films with the children playing the lead roles. The stories convey messages that the fathers have come to see as basic truths during the course of their own lives and believe are important to pass on. Within these stories, in the freedom created by fiction, father and child can be united once again.