Claude Cahun’s iconic photograph ‘Don’t Kiss Me/In Training’ was inspiration for a two line poem, a fractured couplet revealed and hidden throughout this piece about intimacy, tactility and the projected theatre of how it feels to be together.
A game involving dressing up, repeated, with love. Training for feeling.
Set in Stunning 1960's Cornwall and 70's Essex, David a boy of mixed race spends his days beach combing for treasure and fantasizing about a mythical mermaid.
One day he is forced to run away from home following an attack from his abusive father. His quest to return home triumphant to his beloved county and the girl he loves, takes him on a roller coaster journey to sea through the wild gang life of 70's Southend and finally back to Cornwall to search for legendary ships treasure and to avert the tragic demise of his family.
Set over the course of one day, ‘random’ is a touching and profound story which follows an ordinary family on an ordinary day whose lives are devastated by the impact of a random event.
“Ballet dancers get dodgy feet from dancing and I get dodgy hands from making their shoes!”
Ballet shoes may be worn by delicate girls, but they’re crafted by burly men whose hands tell another story... We delve into the world of professional ballet dancing seen through the eyes of a shoemaker who desperately strives to save the dancer as much pain as possible by making the shoes as well as he can. Meanwhile, a seasoned dancer talks of the pain she went through dancing at the highest level. An undiscovered world behind the pomp and perfection.
A man is desperately knocking on the front door, in the hallway lies broken crockery and bottles. Steam from a whistling kettle begins to full the kitchen. The bathroom door is ajar and Niall is lying on the floor mumbling incoherently; we enter the world of a tormented soul.
From traditional wife and mother of three to jet-setting ‘Baby Dyke’, share Jan’s story as she travels the globe searching for Sapphic insights, flirting and dating tips…
Jan Walker was married for 23 years but whilst her hubby watched the football, she discovered The L Word, little knowing her life would soon be transformed. Her subsequent divorce, paved the way for her late adoption of lesbian life, catapulting her into a new world of cruises, entertainers, dining clubs, ramblers, conventions and global gay pride events, encouraged by her bemused but supportive children.
Meeting lesbian ambassadors, entertainers, entrepreneurs and pioneers along the way, she welcomes tips and anecdotes from established lesbians, ‘Gold Star’ lesbians, young and old lesbians, couples and singles to women like herself who are ‘dykes in training’ honing their ‘Gaydar’ skills. In her quest to make up for lost time Jan seeks answers to help establish her new found identity. Is she an Alpha or a Beta? Femme, Butch or Kiki? A Pillow Queen or Stone Butch? Does she have to be any? And what exactly do they mean? How does a fifty year old Baby Dyke find love? And exactly how do you switch on your Gaydar?
Tells the story of an eight-year-old boy who aspires to be a hero and embarks upon a journey to prove his greatness - with unexpected consequences. A moving insight into childhood where fantasy jostles with reality as a young boy’s imagination transforms and empowers everyday life.
"A polyphonic meditation on time and urban space" (Sukhdev Sandhu, BFI 2012).
"If you let it, a street will grow" says a voice in this film-poem which offers a lyrical, painterly defence of the everyday and a celebration of multiculturalism, even as it poses questions about the process of regeneration.
Shot on location in the London Borough of Hackney, the film interweaves rarely seen archive, super 16mm and super 8mm photography. Slow, still shots of streets, parks, cemeteries and markets are juxtaposed with the East London paintings of Leon Kossoff, Jock McFadyen and James MacKinnon.
With a script based on poet, Michael Rosen's play for voices, a heightened soundscape mixes documentary with poetry, music, song and location recordings. As we slip between past and present, real and imagined, famous and unknown "the world comes to Hackney": From Shakespeare in Shoreditch, to a Jamaican builder, from an 18th Century feminist abolitionist to a Turkish barber, from Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" to the Jewish 43 Group taking on Oswald Mosley in Dalston, the audience is invited to apprehend the city as fragmentary and multi-layered, "past in the present, present in the past."
Wreckers is an evocative, beautifully shot drama that examines the fragile relationship between truth, intimacy and betrayal. A married couple move back to his childhood village to start a family. Their relationship seems idyllic but a surprise visit from the husband's brother ignites sibling rivalry, exposing a savage past and the lies embedded in the couple's relationship.
