Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

A visionary, innovator and originator who defied categorization and embodied the word cool: a foray into the life and career of musical and cultural icon Miles Davis.
Using words from Miles Davis' autobiography, this film offers an incisive insight into our understanding of the legendary musician. Newly released archival material, alongside interviews with pre-eminent historians and personal friends like Quincy Jones, illustrate a man of intensity and devotion to his craft. Despite the indignities of America during the time of segregation, nothing was going to stop Davis from realising his dream: to create a new form of musical expression. Davis worked like a physicist with his collaborators to push musical experimentation and widen the tones and lyricism of jazz - the effects of which are felt to this day.
Delving into his past loves, personal relationships and addictions, a clearer portrait of Davis the man emerges. Davis is fearless and engaging throughout, and his intellectual fervor is only tempered by his insecurities. Director Stanley Nelson’s epic biopic collects the strands of a creative life and weaves them together for us to understand one of the great modern American artists like never before.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Documentary Premieres - World premiere
Official Selection Hot Docs 2019 - Special Presentations
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Create Strand

Synopsis

When allegations of sexual abuse by Michael Jackson involving young boys surfaced in 1993, many found it hard to believe that the King of Pop could be guilty of such unspeakable acts.
In separate but parallel stories, James Safechuck (10) and Wade Robson (7) were each befriended by Jackson, who invited them into his singular, fairy-tale world as his career reached its peak. Their families were unaware of the manipulation and abuse he would subject the boys to over a period of years.
Through gut-wrenching interviews with the now-adult men and their families, LEAVING NEVERLAND crafts a portrait of sustained exploitation, deception and the complicated feelings that led both men to confront their abuse only once they each had had a young son of their own.
Playing out against the backdrop of our collective experience, the film documents the value of breaking a long-held silence, even when it implicates a powerful, revered figure.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Special Events programme - World premiere

Synopsis

Laura and Tyler, best friends and drinking buddies, whose hedonistic existence falls under the creeping horror of adulthood when Laura gets engaged to Jim – an ambitious pianist who surprisingly decides to go teetotal.
Laura and Tyler are soulmates. Thirty-something best friends and revellers residing in Dublin, they are ingrained in the fabric of each other’s lives; dating, partying, drinking and living their life without limitations. American ex-pat, Tyler – a siren of drugs, alcohol and debauchery – lures aspiring writer, Laura, away from her long overdue novel as well as her new beau, the irresistibly handsome Jim. A tee-total classical pianist, Jim is the antithesis of Tyler and the world she and Laura inhabit, and with his presence the girls’ hedonistic double act finds itself in jeopardy.
While Tyler wants to keep the party going, Laura, buoyed by Jim’s restraint and stability, starts to emerge from her years of partying, searching for her place in the world. Caught between desires – youth and adulthood, her old self and her future self – Laura impulsively gets engaged to Jim, knocking Tyler for a loop. Bereft at the thought of losing of her partner in crime, Tyler spies a chance to rock the boat of the “perfect” life Laura can see on the horizon, but in doing so inadvertently helps Laura find a new unexpected path to independence.
At once both a celebration of female friendship and an examination the choices we make when facing a crossroad, ANIMALS is an honest, funny, edgy, unconventional and bittersweet snapshot of modern women.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Premieres - World premiere

Synopsis

1987. When music fanatic Javed discovers the illustrious back catalogue of Bruce Springsteen his world is turned upside down; already a creative soul his passion for music and writing is set alight by the songs of the working-class poet, whose lyrics feel all too familiar to the aspirational teenager. Yearning to escape his rundown hometown and the rules of his traditional Pakistani household, Javed finds himself caught in between two worlds and must discover if he too is 'Born to Run…'
Based on the memoir of lauded Guardian journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, this timely coming of age story proves that the right song has the capacity to transcend race, religion and place, tap into our hearts and help us discover who we really are.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Premieres - World premiere

Synopsis

Jade is a young mother in the prime of her life when an acid attack leaves her severely burned. While her face has been reconstructed, her beauty is lost beneath the scars. On a self-destructive path with her relationships crumbling, Jade must take drastic action to reclaim her life.
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2019 - Voices - World premiere
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Synopsis

A story of enduring love between Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen. The film follows their relationship from the early days on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra in 1960 as part of a bohemian community of foreign artists, writers, and musicians, a time of ‘free love’ and open marriage; observing how their love evolved when Leonard became a successful musician.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Documentary Premieres - World premiere

Synopsis

Based on the true story of Katharine Gun, a former Mandarin translator at the British intelligence agency GCHQ, who made headlines after she leaked a confidential NSA memo that proposed the USA and UK put pressure on six ‘swing’ nations on the UN Security Council to vote in favour of the imminent 2003 Iraq invasion.
The Observer newspaper in the UK broke the story and Gun was subsequently arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act, sparking a public outcry. Authorities dropped the case almost as soon as her trial began in early 2004.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Premieres - World premiere
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Debate Strand Gala - European premiere

Synopsis

13-year-old William Kamkwamba is thrown out of the school he loves when his family can no longer afford the fees. Sneaking back into the school library, he finds a way, using the bones of the bicycle belonging to his father Trywell, to build a windmill which then saves his village from famine.
The emotional journey of a father and his exceptional son at its heart, William’s tale captures the incredible determination of a boy whose inquisitive mind overcame every obstacle in his path.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Berlinale Special Gala - European premiere

Synopsis

Femi, a British boy of Nigerian heritage who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire, moves to inner London to live with his mum. Struggling with the unfamiliar culture and values of his new environment, teenage Femi has to figure out which path to adulthood he wants to take, and what it means to be a young black man in London.
Shola Amoo's second feature is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama, which explores universal themes of identity and belonging.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - World Cinema Dramatic Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

A psychologically chilling slow burn; a young woman and her reticent new stepchildren find themselves isolated in the family’s remote winter cabin, locked away to dredge up the mysteries of her dark past and the losses that seem to haunt them all.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Premieres - World premiere
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Cult Strand

Synopsis

A young, quietly ambitious film student embarks on her first serious love affair with a charismatic and mysterious man. She tries to disentangle fact from fiction as she surrenders to the relationship, which comes dangerously close to destroying her dreams.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - World Cinema Dramatic Competition - World premiere
Winner: Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2019
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Panorama

Synopsis

The inside story of the meteoric rise and monstrous fall of movie titan Harvey Weinstein, revealing how Weinstein acquired and deployed his formidable power over the course of decades. Former staffers, college friends and reporters acknowledge the visionary qualities and brilliance of the man, while reflecting upon his ruthless attempts to preserve his power as scandal threatened to engulf him. In candid, emotional, often harrowing testimony - with many accusers speaking on camera for the first time - the documentary exhumes both the method and the collateral damage of Weinstein’s alleged abuse. As the criminal case against him continues, the film questions whether meaningful change in the justice system - and in the film industry - is really possible.
Director Ursula Macfarlane crafts a sinister cinematic landscape exposing the underbelly of the storied Hollywood fairy tale... creating a brilliant, haunting parable for our times and a beacon call for future generations. (Sundance Brochure)
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Documentary Premieres - World premiere