Projects in genres: Human Rights and with status: Production, Pre-production

Synopsis

Riaz Masih is a 51-year-old Christian sewer worker living in Lahore, Pakistan. Despite systemic discrimination and working for a pittance, he is determined, with the support of his wife Zarina, to educate their four children. After 27 years of informal labour, Riaz finally secures a job with the city sanitation department and makes the rare decision to take out life insurance. His children show great promise. Sahil dreams of becoming a civil servant, while Mehek earns a scholarship to Punjab College. Their younger children, Rahul and Manahil, are deaf and mute and each excels in their own way. Through his school, Rahul is exposed to a more affluent world, as many of his classmates come from influential families. Sometimes labelled a bully at school and in his neighbourhood, his emotional and moral development becomes a key thread of the story. Riaz, whose own father only completed secondary school, dreams of seeing his children graduate from university and transform the family’s future. The documentary follows Sahil’s gap year after disappointing exam results and explores family tensions, including Mehek running away from home and leaving school. The film exposes the entrenched caste and religious privilege that marginalises Christian Dalits in Pakistan.

Synopsis

Set across Kenya, a cinematic documentary that immerses the viewer in a world where ancestry and progress coexist in tension. In the rural heartlands, a tribal community embodies heritage through agriculture ritual and craft. In Mombasa, a young professional works at the intersection of technology and evolving infrastructure, facing constant change. A school student balances home and classroom life while imagining a future shaped by tradition and opportunity. Filmed in a 'fly-on-the-wall' style, without narration or talking heads, the film unfolds through observation: the pounding of grain, the rush of traffic, the laughter of children, the silence of ceremony. By weaving these strands together, TIPPING POINT asks a quietly profound question: At this cultural and economic crossroads, what does well-being mean, and is happiness being redefined?

Synopsis

In the 1830s, Winnifred ‘Freddie’ Sheridan finds herself convicted to serve a sentence at the ‘Cascades Female Factory’ in Tasmania. There she meets the charismatic Ellen Scott, a female convict who has created a joyful counter-culture within the misery of 'The Cascades' - a rebel faction known as the ‘Flash Mob’. Together, the two women will grow the ‘Flash Mob’ from an underground movement into a prison-wide feminist phenomenon that could threaten the very existence of ‘The Cascades’.

Synopsis

WHAT ABOUT GARY is a raw and emotive documentary that delves into the tragic consequences of misinformation, exploring how conspiracy theories led to the death of Gary Matthews from Covid-19. The film intimately portrays the profound grief of Gary's family and friends as they grapple with this senseless loss. Director Tristan Copeland, Gary's cousin, questions the purveyors of these falsehoods, driven by a need to understand why they ensnared Gary. Through vérité footage, archival materials, and Gary's own paintings, the film explores Gary’s descent into a distorted reality, seeking the root causes of his susceptibility to misinformation. Shot during the pandemic in Shrewsbury, England, WHAT ABOUT GARY captures the isolation that made many, including Gary, vulnerable to manipulation. With kinetic editing, evocative camera work, and a poignant score, the film examines how society failed to protect its citizens from misinformation. A potentially controversial yet vital work that questions how conspiracy theorists wield such influence and whether others can be saved from similar fates. A cautionary tale for a world grappling with truth in the digital age, and a tribute to a life tragically cut short, driven by a need to understand why.

Synopsis

WITH THESE HANDS shares challenging, complex and under-discussed stories of sexual assault and recovery. It explores the role of listening in the recovery of both survivors and those responsible for sexual harm. WTH is made in collaboration with contributing artists and in consultation with survivor-run organisation SLEEC.

Synopsis

Following the journey of a public relations officer who works for a high profile charitable fund after she discovers that the charity is covering up a sexual assault on a homeless woman.

Synopsis

Borneo, the world’s oldest rainforest, a culture near extinction. All destroyed by a sporting event viewed by billions. Three brothers from the forest, a film crew and their activist friends become undercover investigators, following the stolen wood to its final stop: Tokyo’s new Olympic Stadium. TOUCH WOOD plays out in the build-up to the approaching Olympic spectacle, the camera following a group of friends across oceans, through a spectrum of cultures, to reveal an honest tale of a peoples’ attempt to understand the forces behind the destruction of their home. This journey, however, is not without dangers. Spying on illegal companies has obvious risks but the alienating world they discover on the way has more sinister perils. In this character-driven documentary, the brothers are a symbol of the exploited. The Tokyo Olympics in contrast typifies the insatiable consumer society validating this type of profiteering. Whilst highlighting these clear injustices, TOUCH WOOD provides a window into how indigenous peoples view the world that is driving so much change within their own communities. In doing so, exploring the costs of humanity’s addiction to progress and the effect it is having on the globe’s most vulnerable peoples and the ecosystems they inhabit.

Synopsis

Based on the memoir of 45 year-old Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a man who was a suspected terrorist and has been incarcerated at Guantanamo bay for 14 years without ever being charged with a crime or having the opportunity to defend himself in court. Slahi is the son of a nomadic herder who has been subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques that include everything but waterboarding. His memoir claims he was subjected to being kept awake for days, having his ribs broken, being blindfolded and taken out to sea where he was told he would be executed.

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

'Cactus' is divided into two eras and is loosely based on the sculpture 'Pieta' by Michelangelo. Cactus revolves around two female characters and circles around the concept of life and death and something beyond it.

Synopsis

Based on the forthcoming memoir by ex-AL Jazeera Journalist Mohamed Fahmy who was imprisoned for 400 days in Egypt’s Scorpion prison. A complex geopolitical web of score-settling left him caught in an extraordinary struggle on the path for freedom.

Synopsis

We see the rise of a successful mixed race couple living in London with everything going for them. Just like so many of us life is pure bliss and for them and with a young family they have everything and more to live for. But with one huge changing event which can happen to any one of us we witness there hopes, dreams and desires crushed and the world they once knew comes crashing down. With no way to escape the waves of torment that we see come thrashing down on them and the poverty trap they fall into a world dependant on the state, before long the dreams they once had become a nightmare just to stay together and survive. Inspired by 'Cathy Come Home' a film by Ken Loach