Artist Gillian Wearing places an ad asking, 'Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character'.
Her film 'Self Made' documents the intense, revealing and sometimes disturbing experiences of seven people who sign up for the project. They take part in a series of workshops led by Method acting teacher Sam Rumbelow, who uses different techniques to help them access their memories and personal experiences so that each participant can create a vivid and authentic moment of performance. Gradually, we see five members of the group working towards their own individual end scenes, filmed dramatic vignettes that directly emerge from their personal histories. The scenes range from episodes of violence, to images of imagined love, via an excerpt from Shakespeare's King Lear. As the lights finally go off in the studio, the participants leave the experiment having for the first time confronted and articulated deep truths about themselves.
Over the last five years an independent record shop has closed in the UK every three days. Sound It Out is a documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England.
A cultural haven in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, SOUND IT OUT documents a place that is thriving against the odds and the local community that keeps it alive.
Directed by Jeanie Finlay who grew up three miles from the shop. A distinctive, funny and intimate film about men, the North and the irreplaceable role music plays in our lives.
A classic love triangle of two sisters, a story of sibling rivalry and the man that comes between them.
Gillian cycles away from her old life, changes her name and gets a job picking fruit. Gorgeous bad boy Kev pops a strawberry in her mouth and suddenly anything seems possible. Sister Emily tracks her down and reminds her who she really is and how she must be. Emily is used to having her own way but for once Gillian decides to fight back and a battle of will ensues.
Strawberry Fields takes the play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' as its starting point, this time told from Stella’s point of view. Complex entanglements and the destructive, manipulative games of a jealous sister makes Strawberry Fields an unsettling rites of passage film, bursting with energy, sex, humour and dark turns.
Grieving teenager, Tommy, struggles to bring himself to visit his mother’s grave against the preying eyes of mourners in a busy city cemetery. As others fail to see his pain, Tommy searches for a fitting way to feel close to his Mum. Mistrust, mutual misunderstandings and grief bring the teenager and an elderly widow to a greater understanding of the other and their own loss.
Sidney's mother has been beaten again after a drunken row with his step-father. Looking for a way to escape, Sidney plans on leaving home to go to college. Can he leave his little sister with their parents alone? This is a powerful drama with some disturbing scenes.
In this short film, specially commissioned as part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations in 2010, Professor Uta Frith FRS and her young companion, Amalie Heath-Born, find out just what goes on inside our brains when we view the treasures on display at London’s world-famous Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Ferryman is a dreamlike portrayal of a ferry crossing on a river in Devon. Drifting slowly through chance encounters along the river and its shores, the film reveals the unexpected history of the ferryman, evoking a distinct feeling of character and place. (Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2009).
A hungry fox accepts a job in a coffee shop. The place is everything he's every wanted. Muffins!
But as his life seems to change for the better he's left wondering if he's a truly happy fox.
On an isolated farm in the beautiful but rugged Peak District in Northern England, Cassie and her children are visited by a lonely predator, a man searching for his own 'ready-made' family.
He charms his way into their lives with ease before revealing his obsession. Trapped, Cassie and her girls have to escape. They unite and fight like never before. Tense and suspenseful, The Holding is a heart-pounding thriller in the vein of 'Cape Fear'.
