Mark Smithson, an author widely celebrated for his first novel, is suffering from writer's block. After a desperate episode he and his wife Sarah move to the countryside for a fresh start. Reinvograted, Mark finds a fresh subject for his second book. But when aspects of his story begin to materialise in real life, his newfound creativity soon starts to overwhelm him. Sarah can see the toll the project is taking on her husband, but - despite repeated efforts - can't find a way to connect with him.
RIBBLEHEAD asks: how close to the edge will we push ourselves to get what we want? And what would we do if we suddenly found we couldn't get back?
SHY RADICALS is a portrait of Hamja Ahsan and the story behind his book and satirical manifesto, which calls for all shy, quiet, and introverted people to unify and overthrow Extrovert-Supremacy.
A work that blurs the boundaries between reality and an imagined world in which Ahsan is a leading character.
Zebra Girl is a psychological thriller with a bold streak of pitch-black humour that explores the vicious cycle of abuse and mental illness.
Catherine’s seemingly perfect rural life is turned upside down after she discovers her husband is hiding a dark secret that leads her to the unthinkable. Murder. Cue Anita, Catherine’s mysterious best friend who shows up to help dispose of the body. As Catherine and Anita reminisce whilst chopping up and bagging up, their intimately intertwined and tortured past rears its ugly head. Reality blurs as Catherine’s tragic past is slowly revealed along with a secret she’s hiding to fight for the future.
Stephanie, a woman in her mid-thirties, is trying to overcome chronic anorexia in order to re-establish her relationship with her daughter, Pearl. Pearl now lives with Stephanie's mother, Susan, and her fiancee Annette. The burden of Stephanie's illness puts pressure on their relationship, with Pearl angry at her mother but also hopeful that Stephanie is getting better. Stephanie is also challenged by a tension quietly simmering between herself and Susan, while attempts to find solace in a relationship with her nurse, Shaun, invite more turmoil.
BODY OF WATER explores how women self-identify in a world that presents us with constantly conflicting perceptions of what it is to be female. It examines the destructive nature of eating disorders and body dysmorphia within a narrative film framework.
Three-time Academy Award® nominee Johnny Depp plays celebrated war photographer W. Eugene Smith in a real life David vs Goliath story, pitting Smith against a powerful corporation responsible for poisoning the people of Minamata, Japan in 1971.
New York, 1971. W. Eugene Smith (Johnny Depp) is a celebrated photo-journalist and photo-essayist, but he feels devoid of inspiration. He is at such a low ebb he even considers suicide. Then a Japanese-American woman Aileen (Minami) shows up to convince him to come to the Japanese coastal city of Minamata, whose community has been ravaged by mercury poisoning, the result of decades of gross industrial negligence by Japan’s Chisso Corporation.
Eugene eventually agrees to go, with the reluctant and secret support of Life Magazine head Robert Hayes (Bill Nighy). With Aileen, Smith immerses himself in the community, documenting the people’s efforts to live with Minamata Disease and their passionate fight to achieve recognition and compensation from Chisso. It is a life-changing experience — one which brings Eugene redemption, love, new purpose and his greatest-ever photograph. A photograph that will change the world and provide desperately needed fuel to the fledgling environmental protection movement.
'Minamata' is a moving redemptive story of how one man’s powerful photograph impacted the world, yet in order to find it he had to open his heart.
Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Berlinale Special - World premiere
Moving from the frozen landscapes of the Jura mountains to the urban centres of Port-au-Prince, Ouvertures brings the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture back to life. In France a Haitian researcher tries to read the past within the stratigraphic layers of Jurassic limestone, whilst in Haiti a group of young actors translate and rehearse scenes from 'Monsieur Toussaint', a play written by Édouard Glissant, that recounts the last days in the life of Louverture dying in exile in a prison cell in the Jura, 1803. Ghosts from the pantheon of Haitian history visit Louverture on his deathbed and put him to trial. As the play proceeds the actors become possessed by their characters, and eventually the ghost of Louverture joins the group and takes them on a voyage for a new kind of exile.
Official Selection Berlinale 2020 - Forum - World premiere
Kim has found the perfect new home, except for one detail: the basement - and the psychotic realter who wants to keep her locked in it. Her husband is blissfully unaware of the evils that lurk in that house, and he's due to arrive at any minute now.
A young woman, traumatized by a tragic event in her past, seeks out vengeance against those who cross her path.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - Premieres - World premiere
Life for an entrepreneur and his American family begin to take a twisted turn after moving into an English country manor.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - Premieres - World premiere
A creative documentary about the relationship between fathers in prison and their children at home. In addition to the focus of presenting three incarcerated fathers, we gain insight into the changed lives of their families and children. As we become familiar with their daily lives, we witness the distance and even the closeness that grows between the inmates and their families. As a way of keeping contact, the inmates write fairy tales for their kids which we then make into films with the children playing the lead roles. The stories convey messages that the fathers have come to see as basic truths during the course of their own lives and believe are important to pass on. Within these stories, in the freedom created by fiction, father and child can be united once again.
At 75, Roy Andersson is about to make his last film. As with all of his productions, it’s been a long road. The film – ABOUT ENDLESSNESS – will mark the end of a major chapter in cinema. For when Roy stops making films, they will never be made in this way again.
Startlingly original - both in content and method - Roy’s work has defied convention and refused all labels. Over the course of a career spanning almost 50 years, he has remained enigmatic and reclusive… until now.
