STOLEN is the story of women who had the misfortune to fall pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ in an Ireland that heavily influenced by the Catholic Church. Over 80,000 unmarried mothers were incarcerated in institutions run by nuns from 1922 to 1998. Mothers and babies were cruelly separated shortly after birth with thousands of babies taken for adoption and their birth records rendered untraceable. 9,000 infants died from 1922 to 1998, a rate sometimes five times the national average. Others were fostered out as cheap farm labour from the age of six.
It was a history that was largely ignored until the discovery that 796 babies had died between 1925 and 1961 in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home alone. Evidence of tiny remains found in an underground sewage plant on the site of the former home caused outrage and alarm escalated over what happened in other institutions such as Bessborough in Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary where more children died without burial records. The Irish government announced an investigation into Mother and Baby homes.
Survivors relate their experiences of cruelty and loss and of happier outcomes in some cases, interwoven with historical analysis and artists’ responses to what happened.
Official Selection London Irish Film Festival 2023 - World premiere
When a workaholic city detective and her laid-back partner try to stop a disheveled girl staggering down the middle of a country road, they discover she’s being stalked by some unseen entity with a horrifying ultimatum: you stop moving, you die.
Official Selection Sitges International Film Festival 2023 - World premiere
Three Zimbabwean spirits descended to earth on a mission to connect with their descendants. Worried they are being forgotten they embark on a mission to initiate their descendants into a Ndebele cultural ritual. Will the appearance of spiritual beings see Selina fleeing rather than coming closer to who she is?
Official Selection Pan African Film Festival 2023
Alie is a hopeless romantic, with much emphasis on hopeless. Her friend sets her up on a blind date in what turns out to be a surprisingly perfect night.
A call-to-action short film that uses verbatim dialogue from disabled actors told from their lived experiences. The film unfolds through vignettes of the main characters, as we watch them smash stereotypes and reveal societal barriers, whilst breaking the fourth wall to reveal their inner most thoughts.
A Parisian grandfather searches for the granddaughter he has never seen, against a background of family trauma, and seeking to understand how his son became a notorious Islamic State terrorist.
Official selection DocEdge Film Festival 2023 - World premiere
Palestinian Shadi embarks on a secret adventure, and accidentally drags his proud family into a trap where they either collaborate with the Israeli occupation or be shamed and humiliated.
Exploring the relationship between the director, an amputee, and her prosthetist during the making of a prosthetic leg. The filmmaker seeks to demystify an unfamiliar space and ask what it means to create an extension to someone else’s body, questioning prejudice widely seen within our society's consideration of body image.
In this coming of age drama, 11 year old Ama and her 24 year old mother, Grace, take solace in the gentle but isolated world they obsessively create. But Ama’s growing up threatens the boundaries of their tenderness, and forces Grace to reckon with a past she struggles to forget.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2023 - World Cinema Dramatic Competition - World premiere
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2023
Inhabiting a bizarrely unusual body (the body she loves), and navigating daily discrimination, Ella searches the world for another like her – "Is There Anybody Out There?"
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2023 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere
Official Selection Hot Docs 2023 - Special Presentation
Official Selection Krakow Film Festival 2023 - International Documentary Competition
Official Selection Sheffield Doc/Fest 2023
In a fading small town, Lisa goes to work at a ‘vertical farm’ - the kind of new science that she blames for pushing traditional farms, like her family’s, out of business. Dalia and her successful, Muslim family own this new farm - and they struggle to find a welcoming place in the local community. Weeks before Dalia’s wedding, a heated encounter between the two young women exposes deep prejudices and results in Lisa losing her job. But it’s only the start of an unexpected connection between two women from the same town, but very different worlds. As the pair enjoy a growing friendship and attraction, they will have to break the barriers of race, religion and class that keep them apart, or risk settling for the lives their families have laid out for them.
