The tragic story of an American music virtuoso who found in 1970s Iran the love and acceptance he never received back home, and who was punished by his country upon his return after the Iranian revolution.
Over images of a young boy playing the accordion in a home movie from 1940’s America, a radio host comments on the trial that was to ruin Lloyd Miller´s life decades later in the Eighties – for charges he was innocent of.
The images of the young boy are quickly replaced with images of an Iranian TV show from the 1970’s, where a sharply dressed man named Kurosh Ali Khan is being interviewed in Farsi about his musical creation, Oriental Jazz. Music kicks in, and now we see the man presented in a video, much younger, playing the santur, a Persian instrument, accompanied by jazz. A voice begins to narrate, in the third person, the story of Kurosh, an American man who is forced by political circumstances to leave the country he’s considered his only real home for seven years. He is on his way back to America, leaving his life as a famous TV host behind him.
D'Angelo had it all: two platinum selling albums, a sold out world tour and a body chiselled to perfection. However, one day at the height of his career in 2000 the soul singer vanished. For 12 years he descended into darkness.
Out of nowhere, his third album Black Messiah was suddenly released: soundtrack of the lost years. Now preparing a comeback tour, D’Angelo is at a crossroads between a haunted past and uncertain future.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2019 - Spotlight Documentary - World premiere
A behind-the-scenes look at the highs and lows of the life and career of Bill Wyman, former founding member of the Rolling Stones and renaissance man of rock and roll.
Using Bill's personal archive and including interviews with Bill’s family, bandmates and friends, the film provides a fresh insight into the reality behind the myths and legends of music’s rock and roll years as we explore the experiences and stories of an amusing, engaging and down-to-earth man; often simply called ‘The Quiet One’.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2019 - Spotlight Documentary - World premiere
In these dark times, you may think that every hazard has been identified, but nobody has taken in consideration how dangerous dance can be…
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - Shorts Programme
The compelling story of the Chins, the Chinese Jamaican family behind “Studio 17” a legendary recording studio in downtown Kingston, Jamaica. Studio 17 was at the heart of the music revolution that began after Jamaican independence in 1962. In its prime, artists who recorded there included Bob Marley and the Wailers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, Alton Ellis, Carl Malcolm, Jimmy London and many more. But dramatically, during the political turmoil of the late 1970s the Chin family fled to New York and the studio was abandoned. 40 years on, a treasure trove of original studio tapes has been salvaged - revealing unique and stunning recordings from the ‘golden age’ of reggae, many of which were unreleased and have never been heard before. As the tapes are played they give rise to a myriad of wonderful stories and in a highly poignant conclusion, the teenage voice of the late Dennis Brown is beautifully re-recorded with the vocals of a rising teenage star, Holly Stevenson, all magically orchestrated by producer and one time Eurythmics star, Dave Stewart.
Legendary US photographer Jim Marshall's diary of a life in music captures both the volatile man behind the lens and the seismic changes that defined the 1960s. A child of immigrants he battled inner demons and fought his way to become one of the most trusted mavericks, the man with five Leica M4s hanging round his neck.
A passion for music led him to capture some of the most iconic figures in music history from the jazz greats to Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and The Rolling Stones. His abrasive but honest approach to his subjects combined with his incredible skill to build trust expanded his portfolio beyond celebrities, documenting key moments in US history and a time of great turbulence.
Official Selection SXSW 2019 - 24 Beats Per Second - World premiere
In 1961 Elvis misses his cue at a recording session and politely starts again. Analogue sound is converted to video showing the audio frequency spectrum, and a shuffle dancer from recent online footage dances through it.
A bold and lyrical portrayal of two brothers, David and Sanchez, living on a Hackney council estate in East London. The film combines dance with documetary giving a compelling insight into their family and friendships, the stigmas they face daily and how they process their emotions.
Official Selection IDFA 2019 - IDFA Competition for Short Documentary - International premiere
A love letter to a forgotten space.
Tones and textures intersect – noises, light, shadow, forms – extended and expanded, drawing us into this non-place.
"The non-place never exists in pure form; places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in it".
Marc Augé - Non-Places
Writer and musician PJ Harvey and award-winning photographer Seamus Murphy hatched a collaboration - seeking first-hand experience of the countries she wanted to write about, Harvey accompanied Murphy on some of his worldwide reporting trips, joining him in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Washington DC. Harvey collected words, Murphy collected images.
Back home, the words become poems, songs, then an album, which is recorded in an unprecedented art experiment in Somerset House, London. In a specially constructed room behind one-way glass, the public - all cameras surrendered - are invited to watch the five week process as a live sound-sculpture. Murphy exclusively documents the experiment with the same forensic vision and private access as their travels.
By capturing the immediacy of their encounters with the people and places they visited, Murphy shows the humanity at the heart of the work, tracing the sources of the songs, their special metamorphosis into recorded music, and ultimately, cinema.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Panorama Dokumente - World premiere
A visionary, innovator and originator who defied categorization and embodied the word cool: a foray into the life and career of musical and cultural icon Miles Davis.
Using words from Miles Davis' autobiography, this film offers an incisive insight into our understanding of the legendary musician. Newly released archival material, alongside interviews with pre-eminent historians and personal friends like Quincy Jones, illustrate a man of intensity and devotion to his craft. Despite the indignities of America during the time of segregation, nothing was going to stop Davis from realising his dream: to create a new form of musical expression. Davis worked like a physicist with his collaborators to push musical experimentation and widen the tones and lyricism of jazz - the effects of which are felt to this day.
Delving into his past loves, personal relationships and addictions, a clearer portrait of Davis the man emerges. Davis is fearless and engaging throughout, and his intellectual fervor is only tempered by his insecurities. Director Stanley Nelson’s epic biopic collects the strands of a creative life and weaves them together for us to understand one of the great modern American artists like never before.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Documentary Premieres - World premiere
Official Selection Hot Docs 2019 - Special Presentations
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Create Strand
