Projects in genres: Woman Director

Synopsis

A traumatised soldier escapes the trenches and finds healing in his familiar haunts.

Synopsis

A film created from the treasure trove of BFI archive. The story traverses a century of gay experiences, encompassing persecution and prosecution, injustice, love and desire, identity, secrets, forbidden encounters, sexual liberation and pride. The soundtrack weaves the lyrics and music of John Grant and Hercules & Love Affair with the images and guides us intimately into the relationships, desires, fears and expressions of gay men and women in the 20th century- a century of incredible change. Starting with the first gay relationship on film released in 1919, 'Different From the Others', this documentary offers a wealth of unknown newsreel and amateur film from the 20s and 30s, the sub textual references in 40s cinema, the arrests and prosecutions of gay men for ‘gross indecency’ in the 50s, the early gay rights marches and decriminalisation of the 60s and 70s, the campaigns for an equal age of consent and against section 28, the Pride movement and AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s, the sexual liberation of the 00s queer and transgender scene and the chemsex, gay parenting and marriage campaign of recent years. Official Selection Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017 - World premiere

Synopsis

A meditation on a lost era and the regenerative power of the sea, this project grew out of the haunting photographs of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s photography project 'The Coal Coast'. Following in the footsteps of Agnès Varda, the scattered clues of England’s post-industrial northern coastline lead to the vivid re-enacting of the death of a young coal miner Billy, by his workmate. The story inspired the New York-based percussion group So Percussion, who together with Amber created the film’s cathartic music.

Synopsis

Carne Ross was a government high flyer. A career diplomat who believed in Western Democracy. But working inside the system he came to see its failures, deceits and ulterior motives. He felt at first hand the corruption of power. After the Iraq war Carne became disillusioned, quit his job and started searching for answers. This film traces his journey across the globe as he tries to answer the question so many people today are asking themselves – isn’t there a better way? For Carne there is. Anarchism offers a solution to the brutalities of Capitalism and the dishonesties of Democracy. It offers a world where people have control over their own lives. From the protesters of Occupy Wall Street, to an anarchist collective in Spain, to Noam Chomsky, the grand old man of anarchism himself, Carne finds people who are putting the theory into practice. His journey eventually takes him to one of the most dangerous places on earth: Syria, eight kilometers from the front line with Isis, where a remarkable anarchist state has risen phoenix like from the flames. A powerful film about one man’s epic journey from government insider to anarchist.

Synopsis

11-year-old Ben can’t really remember his dad. After all, he was only a baby when he lost him in the New York Twin Towers attacks. Now ten years later, with his mum finding things hard to manage at home, he’s sent away for one long, hot summer, to stay with his grandparents. A new kid in a new town, Ben quickly makes firm friends with Priti (11), the super-smart, know-it-all, motor-mouth next door. Then his sulky 12 year old cousin, Jed, turns up. Together, the three young heroes start to believe they are on the brink of cracking a major terrorist plot, with Priti’s own devout Muslim older brother the target of their rising suspicions. Soon, what looked like a boring holiday turns into an adventure none of them will never forget. A heart-warming, timely film for the whole family, all about the power of friendship, love and the amazing things that can happen when communities work together for a better understanding. Adapted from Catherine Bruton’s much loved children’s book.

Synopsis

In an unusual working morning, people sit and wait, contemplating life, and the dead man hanging in front of them in a Mexican factory.

Synopsis

In the future, prisons will be overrun. Authorities will provide access to the jails via online portals. Advertisers will fund the jails and subscribers, able to access any felon day or night, will sign up in their millions. This is the story of one escaped prisoner who - on discovering he's the world's most downloaded felon - will stop at nothing to win back his anonymity.

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Ying Ling is away from home training to become a mortician at one of China’s largest funeral homes. Despite her fear of ghosts and dead bodies, she learns the spa rituals; cleaning and massaging the corpses while the grieving families look on. Ying Ling finds solace from her macabre role through her playful banter with another of the young morticians. Together, they spend their time off talking about their hopes, fears and plans for the future. As one of many rural-to-urban teenagers working to support her family, Ying Ling must immerse herself in the surreal and grinding world of China’s industrialisation of mortality. With intimate access and moments of humour, we follow Ying Ling as she learns about life while surrounded by death. Official Selection Berlinale 2017 - Generation 14plus - World premiere

Synopsis

A study of the transformation of asbestos extraction from the earth to extraction from the walls. In this piece the artists ask how both filming and the use of found footage can be thought of as forms of extraction: extracting images from forms and from contexts. Mined, extracted, and woven, asbestos was the magic mineral. Towns became cities under its patronage, Persian kings entertained guests with its fireproof nature, and centuries of industry raked in the profits of its global application. We now live in the remains of this toxic dream, a dream that with the invention of electron microscopes revealed our material history as a disaster in waiting. Yet the asbestos industry has far from left us, with extraction from the soil transforming to extraction from our walls. We are now faced with two options: to remove this material from our homes and start anew, or to build upon its residue. Removal is a dangerous and costly operation. So often we choose to live amongst it instead, choking out our walls with plastic tarping: the failed promises of modernism literally entombed all around us. Shot in the mining township of Asbestos, Quebec, home to the world’s largest asbestos mine, that only stopped extraction in 2012, the film is a meditation on the entanglement of the fragility of bodies, the nonlinearity of progress, and the persistence of matter. (Sasha Litvintseva and Graeme Arnfield) Official Selection Berlinale 2017 - Forum Expanded

Synopsis

Viceroy’s House in Delhi was the home of the British rulers of India. After 300 years, that rule was coming to an end. For 6 months in 1947, Lord Mountbatten, great grandson of Queen Victoria, assumed the post of the last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people. The film’s story unfolds within that great House. Upstairs lived Mountbatten together with his wife and daughter; downstairs lived their 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants. As the political elite; Nehru, Jinnah and Gandhi, converged on the House to wrangle over the birth of independent India, conflict erupted. A decision was taken to divide the country and create a new Muslim homeland: Pakistan. It was a decision whose consequences reverberate to this day. The film examines these events through the prism of a marriage - that of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten, and a romance, that between a young Hindu servant, Jeet, and his intended Muslim bride, Aalia. The young lovers find themselves caught up in the seismic end of Empire, in conflict with the Mountbattens and with their own communities, but never ever giving up hope. Official Selection Berlinale 2017 - Out of Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

Atom Spirit explores the increased interconnectedness of advanced technology and nature within the age of the Anthropocene. The film is set in Trinidad and Tobago, in a location that serves as a nexus point where desire, ecology and queerness intersect. Atom Spirit is a film that reconceptualises our relationships with the environment, non-human animals and each other. Shedding scientific taxonomies and building queer ecologies in their stead, the film considers the possibility and necessity for new means of being in the world.

Synopsis

A fourteen-year-old girl from a small highland community has a crush on a local lobster fisherman. She persuades him to take her out for a day finds the attraction is mutual. A film about girlhood, fantasy, first love and loneliness.