The Ambiguity of David Thomas Broughton is a music documentary following the creative process of one of the UK’s most enigmatic musicians and performers.
As a musical act, David Thomas Broughton is almost unclassifiable. His live shows are a exhilarating mix of musical experimentation and performance art, underlined by a raw unpredictability. His recorded material is dark but beautiful, marrying traditional folk with a surrealist edge. Off-stage, he’s an introvert with a passion for bird watching.
Who is the real David Thomas Broughton? Through a series of interviews with friends, family and collaborators, filmmaker Greg Butler attempts to unravel this ambiguity.
His journey takes him to David’s home town of Otley, where we track David’s creative process as he records new material to be played at the End of the Road Festival.
After being sacked as a team member of spray tanning company Powell's, local lad Tim Lyons is placed in the spotlight, when an opportunity arises to go back to where it all started for him and make amends for previous failures.
"The striking and brutal realities of the students struggling for food, shelter and medication. Mimi's death from TB - and her illness unnoticed at first even by her closest friends - cannot but send a chilling chord in our modern world." A Cape Town-set reworking of Puccini’s La Bohème, sung in Xhosa (with some English dialogue).
'Breathe Umphefumlo' sees director Mark Dornford-May (U-Carmen eKhayelitsha) reunited with singer Pauline Malefane and the Isango Ensemble.
Berlinale 2015, Berlinale Special - World premiere
Singer, songwriter and actor Derek Dick, better known as Fish, was the lead singer of Marillion from 1981 until he left the band in 1988. 'Polska' is an access-all-areas pass, following Fish on his solo Fishheads Club Tour of Poland in 2011.
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015 - World premiere
In the late 1970s, from a tenement flat in Edinburgh, Bob Last and Hilary Morrison operated their record label Fast Product. A predecessor to Rough Trade and Factory Records, Fast Product quickly became the hub for a group of ground-breakingly talented musicians.
The previously untold story of a post-punk/indie music scene that reverberated from Edinburgh, throughout the UK and beyond.
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015 - World premiere
A reimagining of the events that shook a rural Suffolk town in 2006. The residents of London Road, Ipswich had struggled for years with frequent soliciting and kerb-crawling on their street. They were further shattered when the bodies of five murdered women were discovered nearby. When a local resident was charged and then convicted of the murders, the community grappled with what it meant to be at the epicentre of this tragedy.
Using the residents' own words set to an innovative musical score, 'London Road' tells a moving story of ordinary people coming together during the darkest of experiences.
The original musical drama 'London Road' was hailed as a remarkable, ground-breaking work during two sell-out runs at the UK's National Theatre. This feature film adaptation reunites the creative team of Alecky Blythe, Adam Cork and Rufus Norris with the original cast, and also features an ensemble cast of UK acting talent.
Toronto International Film Festival 2015 - International premiere
A feature documentary on the forgotten roots of rap. The story centers around Jalal Nuriddin of "The Last Poets" and the forgotten influence of his seminal record 'Hustlers Convention', an album that changed the face of music and still resonates with meaning today.
Hailed by Grandmaster Flash and Chuck D, sampled by the Beastie Boys, Wu Tang Clan, and Nas, Hustlers Convention was the foundation for todays hip-hop scene. This film tells of one of music’s buried masterpieces: the missing link between soul power and hip hop, which gave its creator the right to claim his title as the ‘grandfather of rap’.
Filmed over five years this story begins in 2009 with Australian musician Julien Poulson hearing the extraordinary voice of poor village girl Srey Thy. The result is romance and the Cambodian Space Project, a thrilling musical explosion that wows audiences with sounds from the 1960s golden age of Cambodian rock
Pride, Pole & Prejudice examines the new trend that is transforming gyms and dance schools throughout the UK. It is about the artistry of pole dancing, those who teach it and the students who learn it and aims to banish the myth that pole dancing is only for strip clubs.
From BAFTA award-winning director Asif Kapadia (Senna), 'Amy' tells the incredible story of six-time Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse - in her own words. Employing extensive unseen archive footage, this modern and moving film shines a light on the world we live in.
A once-in-a-generation talent, Amy Winehouse instantly captured the world's attention. A pure jazz artist in the most authentic sense - she wrote and sung from the heart using her musical gifts to analyse her own problems. The combination of her raw honesty and supreme talent resulted in some of the most unique and adored songs of modern era. Tragically, relentless media attention coupled with Amy’s troubled relationships, her global success and precarious lifestyle saw her life fall apart. As a society, we celebrated her huge successes but were quick to judge her failings when it suited us. The talent that was initially her salvation eventually became the trigger for her disintegration.
Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27.
Official Selection Cannes 2015 - Midnight Screenings
In 2012, jihadists took control of northern Mali. They imposed one of the strictest interpretations of sharia law in history. On 22 August they banned music – radio stations destroyed, instruments burned and Mali’s musicians faced torture, even death. This film follows Mali’s musicians as they fight to keep music alive in their country. Through personal stories we draw the audience into the human side of this ongoing conflict and ask the burning question: what does the future hold for Mali? The film culminates with the first public concert in Timbuktu post jihadist takeover and music ban.
