Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

On 12 February 2012, two journalists entered war-ravaged Syria. One of them was celebrated Sunday Times war correspondent, Marie Colvin. The other was photographer, Paul Conroy. Their aim was to cover the plight of Syrian civilians trapped in Homs, a city under siege and relentless military attack from the Syrian army. Only one of them returned. This feature length drama-documentary tells the epic story of what happened to Marie Colvin and Paul Conroy in Homs. One of the most dramatic stories yet to emerge from the Arab Spring, and the pivotal event in the tragedy of modern day Syria. A gripping account of bravery, heroism, and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming and horrific adversity. The testimonies of those involved, woven together with never-before-seen archive footage and in the moment filming, goes deep into the intense, tragic drama of Conroy and Colvin’s journey into Homs and Conroy’s incredible escape from the city. A chilling, moment-by-moment, journey into the depths of hell. Based on the book “Under the Wire” by Paul Conroy

Synopsis

By the 1920s Virginia Woolf has reached the apex of modern world literature with her landmark novel, 'Mrs. Dalloway', but nothing seems to soothe the darkness that plagues her. She is powerless over the mood swings that alternately lift her to manic creative heights and then crush her under suffocating melancholia, driving her deeper into seclusion... Poems and letters of admiration from Vita Sackville-West lead to a courtship that is hardly concealed from their respective husbands. Soon, Virginia is enthralled by Vita. She is everything Virginia is not – extroverted, direct, in possession of a strongly magnetic personality and, as Virginia notes, a pair of the most "amazing legs". Focusing on the period in 1927-8 during which Woolf wrote 'Orlando', the novel their relationship inspired, 'Vita & Virginia' is the long-gestating feature adaptation of actor and writer Dame Eileen Atkins’ play of the same name. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Special Presentations - World premiere

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Germany 1944: 15-year old Leyna, daughter of a white German mother and a black African father meets Lutz, a member of the Hitler Youth ­- compulsory for all Aryan boys since 1936. They are bound by the realisation of the horrors being committed against the Jews, as Leyna tries to avoid the fate of black Germans at the time. Can she find an ally in Lutz, himself battling the fate laid before him? This is a coming of age story set in the most brutal of times. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Special Presentations - World premiere

Synopsis

Mark Cousins' upcoming film project will be 16 hours when completed (in Spring 2019). The first four hours episodes are narrated by Tilda Swinton. The complete film will be made up of forty “chapters” to be narrated by Tilda Swinton and other key women in cinema. Following in the footsteps of Mark Cousins’ 'The Story of Film: An Odyssey', giving a guided tour of the art and craft of the movies. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest directors – all of them women. “Many films about cinema feature mostly male directors – 'Women Directing Film' challenges that. It tries to change the canon. It’s not about the lives of these great directors, it’s about their work. It is a film school, where all the teachers are female. The intention of this film is to, as Diaghilev and Cocteau said, “astonish us.” To campaign for equality in cinema is compellingly right and part of that campaign must be to celebrate the great women directors from around the world and from every decade, to insert them into the canon where they rightly belong and from which they have been excluded by many film historians, mostly male.” (Mark Cousins) “Cinema: the great empathy machine. The ultimate invitation to walk in other people’s shoes, to look through their eyes, follow their thoughts, make their connections. This is the radical project of cinema itself. It transforms - it liberates us as we watch. It makes us fit for evolution.” (Tilda Swinton) Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - TIFF Docs

Synopsis

A feature documentary about Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic and Olympic athlete who shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, and whose culpable homicide sentence was later overturned and replaced with a murder conviction by the South African Court of Appeal in December 2015. The film explores the tragedy of Steenkamp’s death; alongside a look at South Africa’s turbulent society. Over twenty years after Nelson’s Mandela’s seeming triumph over adversity, the country, born out of the violence of apartheid, has so far been unable to overcome the profound damage inflicted upon it – mired in racial tensions, a culture of gun crime, corruption and violence – and failing institutions seemingly unable to resuscitate the dreams of a nation.

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The Lebanese Civil War saw 170,000 dead, 1 million displaced and 17,000 people still missing. During the conflict thousands of teenagers picked up arms to fight. In 1990, the Taif agreement brought the war to a close, integrating warring parties into a power sharing government. With an amnesty pardoning all crimes against civilians and no plans to reintegrate militiamen back into society, many fighters became anonymous, silent and were left to disappear into a society ravaged by internal strife. Moving through the testimonies of Assad, a right wing Christian intelligence officer; Ahed, a Palestinian refugee fighter and Nassim, a Communist commander, About a War unpicks the personal motivations, trauma and regret of militiamen who picked up arms during the civil war. With no official account of the conflict, their testimonies build a multi-perspective picture of a crucial turning point in Lebanese history that radically transformed the Middle East. Nowadays, ex-fighters Ahed, Assad and Nassim work towards breaking cycles of violence among young people in Lebanon. While their own personal confessions delve deeper into issues of violence and politics in the Middle East, they also stand as a cautionary tale for a country that continues to be marred by inequality and sectarian divide.

Synopsis

A mother daughter relationship in crisis, one hitting the menopause, and no use to anyone! And an 18-year-old leaving home bursting with independence. What's the point in having a kid!!

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AQUARELA takes audiences on a deeply cinematic journey through the transformative beauty and raw power of water. Filmed at a rare 96 frames-per-second, the film is a visceral wake-up call that humans are no match for the sheer force and capricious will of Earth’s most precious element. From the precarious frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal to Miami in the throes of Hurricane Irma to Venezuela’s mighty Angels Falls, water is a AQUARELA's main character, with director Victor Kossakovsky capturing her many personalities in startling visual detail. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2018 - Out of Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

Nestled between a beautiful lake and the Himalayas, Ashmina, 13, lives with her family at the outskirts of Pokhara Nepal, paragliding capital of the world. The remote and traditional town is also a busy tourist destination where the locals are profoundly affected by the swarms of tourists who visit it daily. Forced to skip school, Ashmina helps her family make ends meet by working at the landing field, packing the parachutes of foreign pilots in return of small change. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - World premiere

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Two young men escape to an imaginary land where reality and fantasy blend together.

Synopsis

The story about identity. A photograph of the filmmaker's husband from the time of his First Holy Communion at the end of 1950s in Poland became "the pretext", the beginning or the theme.

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Following artist Bill Drummond over two years of his 12-year World Tour: At work in Kolkata, India, and in Lexington, North Carolina, doing his self-imposed 'work' – building beds, baking cakes, making soup, shining shoes – to the variously amused, perplexed or annoyed reactions of those around him.