As much a film project and an experiment in collaboration as it is a set of fragments drawn from a reimagined cosmos. These fragments, sounds, and stories help us convey the experiential moment of entanglement, or rather, they describe an entangled moment prior to separation, what we call “Deep Implicancy”.
One such story we follow is water, both as it phases transitions with and into other matter including life, but also as it combines disparate geographies, bodies of/in water, and four islands within them – Lesvos, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Tiwi.
Through a series of experimental migrations and elemental crossings we begin to question the form of the universal human, its calcified and exceptional origins, and in particular its ethical program. Wandering and wondering through a transformative figuring of justice, we ask, what if our image of the world recalled phase instead of measure? And what becomes of ethics if we let go of value? (Arjuna Neuman, Denise Ferreira da Silva)
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Expanded Exhibition - Group Exhibition at Betonhalle - World premiere
Writer and musician PJ Harvey and award-winning photographer Seamus Murphy hatched a collaboration - seeking first-hand experience of the countries she wanted to write about, Harvey accompanied Murphy on some of his worldwide reporting trips, joining him in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Washington DC. Harvey collected words, Murphy collected images.
Back home, the words become poems, songs, then an album, which is recorded in an unprecedented art experiment in Somerset House, London. In a specially constructed room behind one-way glass, the public - all cameras surrendered - are invited to watch the five week process as a live sound-sculpture. Murphy exclusively documents the experiment with the same forensic vision and private access as their travels.
By capturing the immediacy of their encounters with the people and places they visited, Murphy shows the humanity at the heart of the work, tracing the sources of the songs, their special metamorphosis into recorded music, and ultimately, cinema.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Panorama Dokumente - World premiere
The Syrian war has raged on for over seven years, leaving hundreds of thousands of children traumatised - many of them living in refugee camps having fled the country. Professor and musician Nigel Osborne has been working in such situations since 1992, when he discovered the positive effects music therapy was having on children in Bosnia affected by such trauma.
Since then Nigel’s techniques have been developed and are now utilised as part of a creative arts programme delivered to children traumatised by war - but how do these methods work, and do they really make a difference to the lives of children who have experienced unspeakable horrors and pain at such a young age?
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2019
Behind the picture postcard idyll of a Cornish fishing village alienation, resentment and anger bubble away. The view may be beautiful, but you can’t eat it.
Martin Ward, is a cove-fishermen without a boat, infuriated with his brother for using the family vessel for day-tripping, and with a brooding resentment for tourists flocking to the village while locals are relegated to an estate on the hill. Nearing the end of the summer season, an argument over a parking space with the incomers who bought his old family home comes to represent all that is wrong with the world for Martin. Tensions rise and when a misguided prank and retaliation escalates to tragedy the brothers are forced to unite and face the future together.
Shifting light, captured on B&W 16mm film and processed by hand, offers a grainy black and white polemic; the state of the nation seen through a family lens. Rugged cliffs, stark seascapes, working hands, silent faces, the screech of a gull, the smoke from a barbeque, clashing classes, tensions building, a casual theft, a threat issued, a punch thrown, retribution, high tide, low water, laughter at dusk, regret in the morning, beauty, anger, compassion, hope.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum - World premiere
A movie shot over a weekend at the Durban International Film Festival, South Africa, in July 2018 by the underground South African collective Medu African Film Ensemble (aka Medu AF).
With a sense of mischief and minimal resources pooled together by its contributors, the film tells the story of Fanon - a Black female filmmaker - beset by her demons ten floors up in an oceanside hotel, gazing out over African shores during the hermetically-sealed weirdness that is the world of a film festival. Using elements of fiction and documentary, the film follows Fanon as she wrestles with what the film industry expects her to be, and not to be, as she readies herself to pitch her first film.
Fanon navigates this uncharted territory, while a supporting cast of real-world, “leading, industry professionals”, seated in her hotel room but never seeming to address her directly, dish out advice straight to camera - are they apparitions or voices in her head? Behind-the-scenes shifts to front-of-scene and back again, theory blends with praxis, as it becomes less and less clear who has the reins, unsettling the foundations of the so-called proper way of doing things.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Expanded - World premiere
Academy Award™ nominee Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA EUROPA, SPOOR, IN DARKNESS) brings to the screen the extraordinary untold story of Gareth Jones, an ambitious young Welsh journalist who travelled to the Soviet Union in 1933 and uncovered the appalling truth behind the Soviet “utopia” and Stalin’s regime. Initially a regular news investigation, Jones’ quest quickly turned into a life-or-death journey… his experiences helped inspire George Orwell’s famous allegory Animal Farm.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Competition - World premiere
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Debate Strand
In this exploration of gender roles, Francesca, a horn player and music composition student is contemplating the pros and cons of continuing a relationship with Nick, an artist. The film explores and dissects the problematic idea of the female muse in the 21st century.
An intimate window into how virtual reality (VR) app VRChat is affecting people's social lives for the better. This whimsical documentary tells the story of a couple that fall in love inside tangible VR, as well as two friends meeting up in real life for the first time.
A salesman on a work trip must guide his unhappy, pregnant wife to safety when their evening video call is interrupted by a strange noise in their house.
BEYOND 'THERE'S ALWAYS A BLACK ISSUE DEAR' captures a vital historical period shedding new light on British LGBTQ history, circa 1970s and 80s. Creating their own identities in a time when, ‘if you were black you could be either Reggae or Soul’ the cast vividly recall daring to be different.
In a dystopian near-future London, a privileged white woman browses a futuristic VR streaming platform and comes across a VR film where she will experience a tense encounter with a pair of policemen…through the eyes of a black man.
