Projects

Synopsis

The film uses puppets and automata as human surrogates, and combines original material with found-footage and archive photographs. The idea of hypnosis occurs throughout, notably in the records of its use in the treatment of hysteria at the Salpetriere Asylum in 19th century Paris.

Synopsis

After her father’s funeral, American student Caitlin (Laura Harrier) leaves her grieving mother (Kate Dickie) behind to return to her third-year studies at the Glasgow School of Art. There she juggles her grief and end-of-year presentation with meeting a new guy, Rory (Scott Miller), and a rupture in her relationship with her housemate and BFF Hannah (Bria Vinaite). Can she again find balance in her turbulent life?

Synopsis

A young guy named Jerry is abruptly brought for questioning. He finds himself in a white room, where he must confront his interrogator playing a chess game. As time passes and the pieces move, Jerry realizes he must face his worst enemy: the truth that keeps hunting him.

Synopsis

A short documentary following the owner of a chicken shop in East London. Nassif Fayadmarni moved here from Iraq and set up the challenging task of setting up a chicken shop. We explore him, his shop and East Ham.

Synopsis

A trio of con-artists lie low in a rented house after defrauding some gangsters. Christy tries to see the sting through. At the same time, an unwanted house guest, drug dealer; Phil, soon has Nick under his spell and Chloe firmly in his sights.

Synopsis

Jaq's in pain. But she also wants to have sex. Which should be relatively straightforward, but her body is out to sabotage coitus in the worst way it can think of: vaginal evacuation on an antique chair. Jaq has endometriosis. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - World premiere Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2020 - International Competition

Synopsis

Jamie and Sofia Cooper's marriage is on the rocks, when they wake up one morning to find they can no longer touch. How will they save their union?

Synopsis

“Filmfarsi was the cinema of a nation with a split personality”, says filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht in this film-critical history of Iran under the Shah. Khoshbakht’s found-footage essay film salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution. These films defined Iranian cinema in the 1960s and '70s, when the industry shared an equal percentage of the market with the USA. Little more than VHS rips remain. Khoshbakht here uncovers that which was thought destroyed. A cinema of titillation, action and big emotions, which also presented a troubling mirror for the country, as Iran struggled to reconcile its religious traditions with the turbulence of modernity, and the influences of the West. The often cheap, sleazy and derivative films offer an insight into Iran’s psyche. Among the scratched reels, some keystones of Iran’s extraordinary film culture emerge, too: Gheysar, whose title design was done by a young Abbas Kiarostami; the work of director Samuel Khachikian, a progenitor of Iranian noir; and The Deer, a film which more than any other symbolises the historic violent turns in Iran’s recent past. Filmfarsi presaged a revolution, and it became one of its first victims. — Yusef Sayed

Synopsis

As a world-renowned professional killer tests out his latest fly-killing machine, he comes face to face with a fly that refuses to die...

Synopsis

Built by award-winning VR creators and an Oscar-winning practical effects team, FLY enables you to become a time-travelling pilot - from the earliest imaginings of Leonardo Da Vinci, to the Wright Brothers’ success on Kitty Hawk Beach, to piloting Concorde and, finally, into one imagined future of flight.

Synopsis

A confrontation between two swimmers in a locker room ends in tears. A collaboration with London-based musicians GUO. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Official Short Film Competition - Dare Strand

Synopsis

Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy designed New Gourna in 1954, introducing ecological principles for mud architecture to Egypt. He dreamt that rural populations might have sustainable lives. Stills and an experimental soundtrack take a haunting look at efforts from the 1940s in sustainability in the Middle East. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Perspectives