A documentary revealing an observation on three barber shops throughout the course of one summer's day in the city of London - Hackney, Herne Hill and Catford..
No other city in the country expresses the thriving atmosphere of social, urban community like the city of London. Documentary film Director Mark Brown relates the audience to the events within the community, through the doors of shops in different parts of the city, giving a detailed interpretation of the diversity within the same culture.
After a rude awakening, Mark Bishop's carefree and complacent lifestyle comes crashing back to reality, forcing him to make hasty plans to marry girlfriend, Denise. He turns to best mate Fitzy for advice only to be ridiculed. Mark’s life soon begins to unravel due to a web of lies and deceit, and before long, he learns that with complacency comes risk.
After Mas is a story of love that flourishes under the cover of darkness during the festival of J'ouvert on the streets of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. But in the cold light of day, can these young lovers from very different backgrounds stay true to their desires?
More Cake is the story of Matthew Collins who has a psychotic breakdown, during which he is unable to differentiate between what is real and what is not.
Based on an Olivier Award winning play first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, Gone Too Far follows two estranged brothers over a single day as they meet for the first time, and struggle to accept each other for who they are. Iku, a proud confident Nigerian is excited to have come to London to live with his younger brother Yemi. Yemi, however, is a typical London teenager, desperate to prove himself a man, both to the local bullies, and to the girls on the estate, whatever the cost. Even if it means losing his brother. A day on the estate filled with danger and excitement, teaches both of them the values of family and self respect. Gone Too Far is an incredibly original and exciting interpretation of Black Britain for the screen; a wonderful opportunity to portray a vibrant group in a way that has never been done before.
Premier/Divisions is an artist film that blurs the line between documentary and experimental observational studies, in an attempt by the maker, as an outsider, to understand the complexities and tensions surrounding perceived and real notions of division in Kenyan society in the run up to the 2013 presidential elections.
The footage was documented at a time when tensions were particularly at the forefront of Kenya’s collective consciousness due to the occurrences of the 2007/08 election and the so called ‘post-election violence’ wherein tribal, class and political conflicts resulted in the murders of over 1,200 people.
Through a series of interviews with Nairobi residents, including artists, film makers, journalists, and musicians, director Chris Paul Daniels mixes oral anecdotal perspectives on contemporary Kenyan life within the context of tensions highlighted by the election, which was controversially won by President Uhuru Kenyatta on 4 March 2013.
The film aims to present a personalised portrait of Nairobi with all its vibrancy, complexities and contradictions and reflect on universal societal habits to seek communal identities, ideologies and alliances.
The lives of three men collide in a London toilet with unforeseen consequences - yet this could happen in 42 countries globally. It’s a ticking time bomb nobody wants to discuss. Will you...?
Jumah is about to turn 16 and is already in need of a fresh start. Burdened with the shameful legacy of a past as a child soldier in the Congo, he lives with his adoptive mother in west London, where he struggles to keep a lid on his history of violence. One night, enjoying a rare carefree evening out with a new friend, Jumah witnesses something that draws him seemingly inescapably into his old ways. As he and others around him begin to question whether he can ever stop being a soldier, he’s set on a path to find out who he truly wishes to be. Already a short filmmaker of some note, Rob Brown has assembled a strong British cast that he has directed with restraint and grace, remaining unafraid to confront the audience with his characters’ culpability and social responsibility. The resulting film is a beautifully realised and moving take on the British urban thriller. (BFI LFF)
A person’s culture is something that is often described as fixed or defined and rooted in a particular region, nation, or state. Stuart Hall, one of the most preeminent intellectuals on the Left in Britain, updates this definition as he eloquently theorizes that cultural identity is fluid—always morphing and stretching toward possibility but also constantly experiencing nostalgia for a past that can never be revisited.
Filmmaker John Akomfrah uses the rich and complex mood created by Miles Davis’s trumpet to root a masterful tapestry of newly filmed material, archival imagery, excerpts from television programs, home movies, and family photographs to create this lyrical and emotionally powerful portrait of the life and philosophy of this influential theorist. Like a fine scotch, The Stuart Hall Project is smooth, complicated, and euphorically pleasing. It taps into a singular intelligence to extract the tools we need to make sense of our lives in the modern world (Sundance).
