Abandoned by her parents, Sameem Ali spent six and a half years growing up in a childrens home. When she was told that her family wanted to take her back she couldnt wait to start her new life with them. Instead, she returned to a dirty house where she was subjected to endless chores. Her mother began to beat her and her unhappiness drove her to self-harm. So Sameem was excited when she boarded a plane with her mother to visit Pakistan for the first time. It was only after they arrived in her family's village that she realised she wasnt there on holiday. Aged just thirteen, Sameem was forced to marry a complete stranger.
When pregnant, two months later, she was made to return to the UK where she suffered further abuse from her family. After finding true love, Sameem fled the violence at home and escaped to Manchester with her young son. She believed she had put her horrific experiences behind her, but was unprepared for the consequences of violating her family's honour.
Honour Me is the shocking true story of Sameem's struggle to break free from her past and fight back against her upbringing.
A single mother struggles to bond with her apathetic child; born with an insatiable and increasingly inhumane appetite.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2020
In patriarchal Nepal, Belmaya, at 21, has given up on finding happiness. An uneducated Dalit, with an oppressive husband and baby daughter, she yearns for freedom. Rewind to 2006, when she was a rebellious teenager living in a girls’ home. Grabbing the chance to learn photography, she wanted to change her world. But the home locked away her camera.
I Am Belmaya follows her transformational journey from 2014 as she once again picks up the camera, this time to train as a documentary filmmaker. But are her husband and community ready for this? Struggling against violent opposition, Belmaya makes a personal film, Educate Our Daughters, which wins hearts and awards, taking her to places she never dreamed she would go.
A film about fitting in, falling out, getting lost and getting back on track - telling the story of four very different but equally socially awkward people as they heroically muddle through life.
Alf finds other people difficult to read. He lives in a world of his own; everyone else is an alien. With meaning so often lost in translation, Alf stumbles into friendship before falling head over heels in love.
Josie is a dreamer. Having recently graduated from Art School she now finds herself drifting, searching for answers but asking all the wrong questions.
Alison is stuck in her lonely habits. In a small town, it is too easy to keep going over all ground. She makes the same mistakes time and again.
Tony is a hapless romantic. Twice married and seeking a new companion, he lets the need for approval stand in the way of true love.
This is a story of hope - how you never know when a chance meeting or coincidence will change your life for the better. It's about the magic of moments and the influence we each have on each other, often without knowing it.
When her boyfriend Ben suddenly dies in an accident, mother-to-be Charlotte collapses upon receiving the news. She wakes up in Ben's family home, a crumbling old manor house in the middle of nowhere with Ben's overbearing mother, Margaret, and his controlling stepbrother, Thomas. They are determined to care for her, at least until the baby arrives. Griefstricken and increasingly haunted by visions possibly brought on by the pregnancy, Charlotte accepts their help. But as the days go by she begins to doubt their intentions and her suspicions grow. Are they drugging her and keeping her captive, with the aim of taking her unborn baby? As her visions intensify and the haze of lies grows, Charlotte decides that her only option is to break free from this family once and for all – but at what cost?
A short observational documentary following the unique and beautiful relationship between a blind woman, Megan, and her guide dog, Layla. The film follows them through a day in their life.
Max Peters, known around the world, wakes to find his phone has been hacked. As the social media tornado begins, his publicist, acting coach, and manager assemble in his London flat to contain the situation and find out who is responsible.
Uloaku works the graveyard shift at a dead end service station and is bored out of her mind, fortunately an encounter with a suspicious stranger will soon fix that.
BAFTA Film Awards 2021 - Nomination - Best British Short Film
An 8-minute animated short set over two time periods. In 1999 a boy becomes obsessed with the Y2K bug; In the distant future a girl is learning to be a priest in a religion based upon the ‘artifacts’ left behind by the boy. The people in the future speak in a partially understandable dialect of English that has evolved over time.
The cult of personality is terrifying, insane and at times hilarious. We are interested in how humans fabricate meaning and place their most deep-seated fears in the most unlikely of gods. The Year 2000 was simultaneously the beginning of the future, and the end of world. NEW YEAR is a humorous film that looks at humans struggling with their mortality, over thousands of years, through stories, ritual and religion.
Ominous cinegrams of Albrecht Dürer’s 'Melencolia' print intercut, like cascading scythes, with depictions of a woman in a field, evoking repetitions that exist in harvest rituals, as well as in gestures of madness. Spectres of familial anxieties creep into this loose take on the myth of Poludnica (noonwraith or Lady Midday), a Slavic harvest spirit that could cause madness in those who wandered the fields alone.
In the underground world of money and sex, this emotionally engaging documentary gives rare insight into the reflective personal struggle of sex workers. Using animation for anonymity, real questions are deliberated by real women, sharing their real stories.
