Projects matching: Just

Synopsis

A poignant and poetic exploration of the rise and decline of Luton’s once vibrant Caribbean culture. Through intimate personal stories, rich historical context, and a cultural lens, the film traces how a thriving legacy rooted in migration, music, resistance, and community has been gradually eroded over the years. From the golden days of sound system culture and bustling youth clubs to the bouncing spirit of Luton Carnival formerly Europe’s largest one day Caribbean carnival, the film reflects on how these vital cultural institutions have been systematically dismantled through decades of underfunding, neglect, and shifting priorities. These weren’t just events or social spaces, they were expressions of identity and anchors of community. With vignettes/reenactments shot on 16mm film and interwoven with candid communal conversations, this documentary offers a poetic and thought provoking insight and invites audiences from all backgrounds to engage in deeper reflection on the value of heritage and the fragility of community spaces. The film ends on the question of: How do communities reclaim their space, their voice, and their future? Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025

Synopsis

“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not real.” Mags summons the powers of the sky in an attempt to seek justice for her late sister. A haunting exploration of grief, revenge and the unseen forces we overlook. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025 - World premiere

Synopsis

Deen Peels needs sleep, but the world just won't shut up. Over one relentless night, he’s determined to take back control - even if it kills him.

Synopsis

Maria is a primary school teacher doing her best to inspire a class of 11-year-olds, but she's unable to because of one unruly and chaotic student. With her career in question and the child’s behaviour spiralling, she makes a series of bad decisions that lead to her accidentally taking and locking this "bad apple” in her home. She tries desperately to backtrack, but when the class starts flourishing and the staff and parents are thrilled with the improvement, she finds herself in a very complicated predicament. As entertaining as it is provocative, BAD APPLES challenges us to think about our society’s systems and how we justify them to ourselves. Loosely based on Rasmus Andersson’s debut novel 'De Oönskare', which plants a mirror at society, lifting up the covers and showing the ethical hypocrisy that lies beneath many of our individual or collective decisions. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2025 - World premiere Official Selection San Sebastián International Film Festival 2025 - European premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Official Competition

Synopsis

When his past and his debts start to catch up with him, a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation. In his green velvet suit and kid gloves, with his pencil moustache and posh accent, Lord Freddy Doyle plays the part of the international high roller, living the lush life at a luxury hotel in Macao. But a closer look suggests Doyle’s situation is more desperate than it appears. He’s behind on his room payments, can’t find a casino that will give him credit, and he’s deep in debt to a dubious local character. Doyle came to Macao because here, as a “foreign ghost” who no one knows, he can reinvent himself. But Cynthia Blithe knows who he really is - and what he’s running from. A sympathetic casino hostess may be able to help Doyle escape his mounting problems. But is there anywhere left for him to go? (TIFF 2025) Official Selection Telluride Film Festival 2025 - World premiere Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2025 Official Selection San Sebastián International Film Festival 2025 - European premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025

Synopsis

AFTER EIGHT uncovers the darker side of Britain’s post-pub curry culture. Telling the story of Satpal Ram, the film unveils a major miscarriage of justice in British history and sparks reflection on the ongoing struggle for racial equality. Official Selection International South Asian Film Festival Canada 2025

Synopsis

FIRES AND FACISM shows the wildfires in Europe are more than just from climate change and mismanagement, but link also with politics, big business, organised crime, and the far right.  The film showcases how communities are engaging in direct action, protest, rewilding, and suppressing the rise of both uncontrollable fires and fascist attitudes. The aim of the film is to unite communities in an increasingly divided society. It shows some ways to bring people together for a common cause and the positive impact this has. Featured are the experiences and actions of 25 people from Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and their actions to build community for a safer and more resilient future.

Synopsis

A surreal comedy featuring five businessmen attempting to conduct some business. However; discussions ranging from the varying degrees of colours that asbestos comes in, the sorrow felt from killing a little blue bird, the strong desire to kick slow walking strangers into oncoming traffic and an idea to use underpants-wrestling as an apology for an out of place physical altercation - all keep getting in the way of actually allowing any formal business transactions to take place. THANKS TO MEET YOU! pushes you face first into a bewildering trip through the corporate wormhole, as the nonsensical water-cooler moments simultaneously fill your nostrils and cover your eyeballs until you can no longer breathe. And then it just sort of stops. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2025 - World premiere

Synopsis

The story of George J. Mitchell, a working-class boy from Maine who would become the majority leader of the US Senate and one of the most respected political negotiators and leaders of his generation. From the basketball court of Bowdoin College to the streets of Berlin as a counterintelligence agent, Mitchell tells his incredible story in his own words. Filmed in his home state of Maine across the summer of 2023, this documentary showcases a problem solver who has worked across the worlds of politics, baseball, and business with an unending passion for understanding through dialogue in his country and around the world, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Synopsis

Residents from a tight-knit working class town are forced to meet a brutal quota just to survive. If they fail to meet it - they are punished with something far worse than death. This film offers a heightened approach on a widening gap between those who have unchecked power and increasing greed - and the struggling many. Socioeconomic exploitation and systemic class oppression. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2025 Official Selection Tampere Film Festival 2026

Synopsis

When an over zealous scientist pushes his experiments with string theory too far - his brane explodes. That's “brane” not “brain” - but that means someone has to sort out the mess he has created. Our hero Corey Harlan is sent in - kicking and screaming - to find the heart of the brane and its creator Anton Chambers. Now manifested as a normal townhouse hosted by the enigmatic and multi-dimensional Aclima – his adventure begins. A house where opening a door from one room to another can lead you to other worlds not just the kitchen. Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 - Opening Night Midnight Madness - World premiere

Synopsis

An unidentified ghostly entity travels through nocturnal shimmer - A faint and fleeting glow of the night - it is an “egregore”, a collective being formed by unconscious memories. This spectral presence drifts between night towns and children's dreamworlds, navigating fragmented geographies and temporal folds. Inspired by 1980s and 1990s Chinese children's science fiction films like WONDER BOY, the filmmaker reimagines electricity not just as infrastructure, but as a living force - speculating: what if the ghost that once inhabited lightbulbs and circuits is now displaced, scattered across phone screens and the devices of a sleepless global supply chain? In this film, the ghost transforms from a figure of mystical empowerment into a fragmented existence, diffracted, dispersed, and re-coded. Assembling fragmented connections through material and time from light accessory factories in southern China, through the dreams and imagination of children living nearby, and the port town of Grays in eastern England. These peripheral spaces appear to host accidental encounters, yet in reality, they serve as vital nodes in the circulation of low-cost global goods - concealing the shadow infrastructures of globalisation. The light traveler drifts across fragmented geographies, tracing entangled relationships between time, labour, desire, and the more-than-human.