'52 Portraits' is an epic love song written to an art form. Dance.
'52 Portraits' is a series of moving image portraits of dancers accompanied by sung autobiographies. It captures the profound, funny and surprising power of their subjects, revealing the stories, thoughts and struggles of dancers in an unexpected way.
Conceived by choreographer Jonathan Burrows, composer Matteo Fargion and video maker Hugo Glendinning. The idea behind the project was to catch both the individual and unexpected brilliance of individual performers, but also the larger collective concerns of dance artists, which accumulate over the course of the 52 films. Originally conceived as a digital project, it began with ideas of the familiar; the common; the shared technological situation. These short gestural portraits were released online every week over a year. These videos now form the chapters of this film.
What emerges in this film is a political and sociological gesture, interrogating the numerous ways artists are subject to hierarchies, stereotypes and marginalisation of any kind. The result is a hugely varied and personal story of what it means to be a dancer.
2018: neo-fascism has taken over. The government implements a programme to chip the population of the UK. Eloise, a documentary film-maker, suspects she is being brainwashed by a secret government organisation.
Set in England against the backdrop of a mass refugee crisis. Amongst the chaos and uncertainty of what lies ahead, is one young man who must question his own humanity when his need to survive takes precedence. How far is he willing to go?
A film about psychosis and surveillance. A composite of fact and fiction, the film draws upon real-life accounts of a schizophrenic disorder: the belief that ones thoughts are being transmitted and heard by others. Set against the proliferation of mobile phone masts in the urban and rural landscape, the film reveals a fragmented inner world of paranoid delusions and acute anxiety, off-set by revelations of mass surveillance and data gathering by government security agencies. Filming locations include a psychiatric video recording studio, an abandoned broadcast television station and a military base used for mass communications monitoring and interception.
Part clinical observation, part psychological horror, the film is driven by a tense and dark electronic score by Lord Mongo, and interweaves the flickering detritus of analogue tape, monitors and studio cameras with layers of sampled archive voices; forming a picture of a psychotic state of mind, entangled in an interconnected world.
Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2017 - World premiere
A short film about Autism and Police, featuring 2 autistic adults sharing their experiences with local Police in the UK . What are common misunderstandings ? What could be improved to help both the the Police and Autistic community?
When your memory fades, your grip on reality becomes fragile and the sense of self slowly slips away. In a synagogue hall in North West London, a group of elderly people gather to find release. Using music and song they try to reconnect with themselves. Through the poetic use of poignant personal photographs and carefully assembled voiced-over memories, this film takes us into the emotional heart of these people, coping with the onset of Dementia.
Neculai, Aurel and Raj all left their homes in Romania to seek a better life for their family.
Now, with their loved ones depending on them, they survive by creating sand sculptures on London’s streets, while thoughts of their children's futures keep them going.
An unfiltered and authentic comedy of errors, revealing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities in a house on the edge of a beautiful forest just north of Paris. If there are rules to break, they will be broken. If there is a truth to be told, they will tell it.
Like countless others Philippe, Michel, Andre and Patrick were rejected as ‘idiots’ and locked away in violent asylums until the sixties when philosopher Jean Vanier secured their release, set up home with them, and came to realise that they knew something the rest of us are forgetting: what it is that makes us truly happy.
Haunting memories upset Michel but he relishes his freedom on long walks in the forest with friends. Still optimistic Andre, approaching seventy, hopes to learn to drive and read, so he can take the woman he loves to a restaurant and choose from the menu without embarrassment.
Beautifully shot for the cinema with full orchestra, The Idiots reveals the mutual benefits of making friends with people very different from ourselves - how vulnerable people help us forget our egos, forgive our enemies, and makes us wonder who the real idiots actually are.
An autistic child has a meltdown... a "moment" as it is generally called... This film is a macro lens in which this moment freezes to capture the isolation, the plethora of emotions and the detachment that helps life go on for millions in these conditions.
This film offers some insight into A -T ( Ataxia Telangiectasia ) a rare, genetic, neurodegenerative disease. The experience is not told by the medical profession, but those living with the condition on a daily basis.
Filmed during an activity weekend in 2015.
When a strange sound wipes out the hearing population, a small group of Deaf people must band together to survive.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2017 - International Narrative Short Film Selection
