Projects with status: Complete

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

Synopsis

Will is a bartender in New Orleans. He has a great job, great friends, and a girlfriend, Carrie, who loves him. He skates across life’s surface, ignoring complications and concentrating on enjoying the moment. One night at the bar, a violent brawl breaks out, which injures one of his regular customers and causes some college kids to leave behind a cell phone in their haste. Will begins receiving disturbing texts and calls from the stranger’s phone. While Will hopes to not get involved, Carrie gets lost down a rabbit hole investigating this strange malevolence. They’ve discovered something unspeakable, and it’s crawling slowly into the light.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - Midnight - World premiere
Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2019 - Directors Fortnight - European premiere

Synopsis

A universal story of friendship, rebellion and the irresistible power of gathered youth. Set to a soundtrack as eclectic and electrifying as the scene it gave birth to, BEATS is a story for our time.
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2019 - Voices - World premiere

Synopsis

A film sixteen thousand splices in the making. E-TICKET is a frantic (re)cataloguing of a personal archive and an opportunity for rebirth to forgotten images. 35mm photo negatives and moving pictures (taken during the artist's formative years) are obsessively cut apart, reshuffled then tape spliced together inch by inch in rigid increments. Fragmented views swipe between a school trip to India then culminate with a protest of a 2005 World Trade Organization summit in Hong Kong. My photographs may have all be cut up and mixed around, but at least they’re all in one place now. A retelling of Dante's Inferno for the streaming age; a freedom of movement reserved for the modern cloud.
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2019 - Tiger Short Competition
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - New Frontier Shorts Program