Projects

Synopsis

A loving 16mm ode to Scottish poet and avant-garde filmmaker Margaret Tait. Artist filmmaker Luke Fowler circles her Orkney home surrounded by red tulips and buzzing insects, visits her films' locations, and zooms in on her notebooks of ideas. We also listen to Tait's poem 'Houses', about what it means to feel at home. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Bright Futures - European premiere

Synopsis

The visuals created for Kamasi Washington’s modern jazz classic 'Hub Tones' invoke ideas of Amiri Baraka’s Nation Time and the immediate ecstatic connection Nkiru had to the rhythms of 'Hub Tones'. The main inspiration behind the film comes from a traditional ceremony called Oboni from the Ikwerre tribe - Nkiru’s tribe by heritage - whereby through repetition of movement and instrumentation, those in the material realm (this realm) go through a process of channelling divine ancestral connection into the spiritual realm. With each transmission and changing tone of the music, those taking part go deeper and deeper into a hypnotic and transcendent state until reaching a climax in the spiritual space. HUB TONES is a visual and spiritual ode to this experience. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Perspectives

Synopsis

LOOK THEN BELOW was filmed in Somerset, a place transformed into a coloured, mist-enveloped island in an oily ocean with a cave basking in a subterranean glow. Time seems to stand still there. After SLOW ACTION and URTH, this is the final part of a trilogy developed with American SF author Mark von Schlegell. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Bright Future - Ammodo Tiger Short Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

When British aid worker Hana returns to the ancient city of Luxor, she comes across Sultan, a talented archaeologist and former lover. As she wanders, haunted by the familiar place, she struggles to reconcile the choices of the past with the uncertainty of the present. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - In Competition - World Cinema Dramatic Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

The starting point for this video piece is an image of artist Maryam Jafri's sculpture 'Anxiety', that has been turned into a stock photo for licensing on a major photographic agency's website without the artist's prior knowledge or permission. A voiceover traces the work’s trajectory from a readymade sculpture for sale at an art fair to a stock photo for licensing online and finally, to a video commissioned by a Kunstahalle, a space meant to guarantee the autonomy of art. The work reflects upon the role of originality, artist labour and copyright in our culture of sampling and remixing. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 -Bright Future

Synopsis

Once upon a time, the Venezuelan village of Congo Mirador was prosperous, alive with fisherman and poets. Now it is decaying and disintegrating - a small but prophetic reflection of Venezuela itself. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - World Cinema Documentary Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

Quiet and demure Joseph (Ben Whishaw) leads a modest life in London, shuttling between his solo apartment and the airport where he forms part of the security team. His birthday goes unnoticed by his colleagues and only mildly celebrated by his irritable parents. Something seems to be simmering in Joseph just under the surface. It only takes a few strange incidents to unlock his impulse to go on a reckless, frantic, and unbelievable journey through the streets of the city as he determines that boundaries and niceties will no longer govern his life. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2020 - World Cinema Dramatic Competition - World premiere Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Panorama - International premiere

Synopsis

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.

Synopsis

A sociological meditation on the different "exits" that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Bright Future - Ammodo Tiger Short Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

A monster film with no monsters. Inspired by the existence of taxonomies of monsters at the heart of Early Modern European science, the film explores and reinterprets a way of seeing the natural world that is almost impossible to imagine from today’s vantage point. Early Modern naturalists were guided by a logic in which scientific truths were discovered through visual analogy. The word ‘monster’ comes from the latin ‘monstrare’, meaning to show, to reveal, to demonstrate. A DEMONSTRATION picks up on these themes in a poetic exploration of the boundaries of sight and the metamorphosis of form. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Berlinale Shorts - World premiere

Synopsis

An older couple leave Tehran and return to their idyllic home town on the Turkish border, but their dreams of quiet retirement are shattered by the realisation that their town has become a smuggling gateway into Europe.

Synopsis

Following Bertie Oldcross, Labour's candidate for Scarborough and Whitby, and his campaign manager Simon, in the final two days of the 1997 UK general election. Bertie is heading for a sure victory but as the pair drive to an end of campaign party they accidentally run over a local man. Knowing the potential repercussions of this going public on the eve of polling day they embark on an overnight cover up operation in the hope of averting these outcomes, but will the morality of their actions become too much for the men to bear?