Projects in genres: Disabilities

Synopsis

In 1848, Phineas Gage suffers an unspeakable brain injury when a tamping rod plunges through his skull, causing dramatic shifts in his personality. His physician Dr Harlow watches over his recovery and must choose whether or not to fight for this outcasts place in the local community.

Synopsis

As editor of The Sunday Times for fourteen years, Sir Harold Evans proved to be the right man in the right place at the right time. In an investigative climate all too rare by today's standards, Evans had the freedom and resources to allow teams of journalists to work on long-term projects, including the exposure of Kim Philby as a Soviet spy. Evans' longest and most hard fought campaign was for the victims of Thalidomide. Originally developed by the Germans in World War II to counter effect sarin gas, post-war the drug was blithely prescribed by British doctors as an antidote to morning sickness, unwittingly leading to tens of thousands of children being born with serious defects. The Sunday Times' fight to win compensation for their struggling families would take more than a decade, as Evans tenaciously pursued the drug companies through the English courts and beyond. Sheffield Doc/Fest 2014 - World premiere

Synopsis

Bill is an elderly pianist in his first week at a care home devoid of music. Growing increasingly aware of Bill's passion for music, resident nurse Emma, seeks ways in which she can connect with him and help him to recover his sense of self.

Synopsis

"Walk With Me?" is a Guerrilla feature film shot according to 'the Guerrilla Filmmaker's Handbook' by Chris Jones. This film takes a surreal look into the life and mind of a writer who is healing after a car accident and suffering with Insomnia in London. She finds inspiration from the characters she meets in her dreams. Dreams and reality become blurred as her insomnia and sleeplessness fuel her writing.

Synopsis

Ana (40) suffers dwarfism and her mother (70), an elegant and sophisticated woman, has never accepted her condition. The muted taboos between the two women will echo more than ever when they prepare the house for Juan’s visit - the son and brother who lives far away from home.

Synopsis

In 1983 writer and theologian John Hull went blind. To help make sense of his loss, he began keeping an audio diary. Encompassing dreams, memory and imaginative life Notes on Blindness immerses the audience in John’s experience of blindness.

Synopsis

The Possibilities Are Endless tells the incredible story of Edwyn Collins, a songwriter who suffered a stroke, an explosion in the brain so severe that it effectively deleted the contents of his mind. After a career as an internationally acclaimed lyricist, he lost all language and was only able to say two phrases: “The Possibilities are Endless” and “Grace Maxwell”. The film is narrated by Edwyn, trapped inside his devastated mind and his wife Grace, the woman who pulled him back to life. This isn’t just a story of determination against all odds; it is an intimate and life-affirming journey of rediscovery.

Synopsis

Justine doesn't speak. She communicates through looking, gesture and the body language of her movement and interactions. This short documentary creates a portrait of Justine’s experience, observing the close rhythms of her days in the run-up to her milestone birthday and new challenges of life in a changing welfare system.

Synopsis

Kieran struggles to rejoin life after waking from a four year coma. Detached, he works the graveyard shift for a bank call centre, life happens to him. Nightly he slips into apathy until he receives a wrong number call for The Samaritans and an opportunity to save a stranger.

Synopsis

A man with Asperger's Syndrome attempts to find a relationship by joining an online dating website.

Synopsis

A visually impaired photographer, Anne, is on the quest to set up a photographic exhibition. The eyesight's deterioration of a visually impaired photographer is a lifetime challenge but search for the necessary funding to organize exhibition becomes huge issue at this time. Would passion to art help overcome health limitations?

Synopsis

Birds Fly South is a micro budget, low-fi, tender, autobiographical, urban fairy tale coursed through with humour about love, life, death, mental illness and hope. We see the story of 2 brothers lives shown through the prism of 24 hours and investigate what reality is, as Adam comes to visit Jake.