Three films made from found footage, video diaries, performance and to-camera discourse. Music and narrative voiceover connect the chapters searching for subjectivity through various existential backdrops; from responses to love with addiction, pain and release, to a detective story set in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, and finally a dance across Europe in search of a happy ending.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Experimenta Strand -World premiere
This documentary is shaped around a large painting by Caravaggio (John in the Wilderness, aka John the Baptist). We view the painting through the question of reproduction. The story follows a copy of this painting made in Shenzhen that then goes to a poet in London, who personally struggles with the painting and the image he sees of himself in it. A group of his artist friends attempt to solve his problem. The events in London are paralleled with a slice of life depiction of a Chinese artisan’s family in Shenzhen, south China, reproducing 'John in the Wilderness'.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Create Strand - World premiere
Colin rents a lavish country manor for his extended family to celebrate New Year. He’s the centre of attention until his estranged brother David unexpectedly arrives, throwing the family dynamic far off orbit.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Official Competition - World premiere
Following a day in the life of young Grime MCs The Block. On the morning of their college showcase, their frontman MC Slicker falls ill with the mumps. Just when all hope is lost, their prayers are answered in the form of the most unlikely of heroes.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Journey Strand - World premiere
Boldly combining the power of dance and cinema, 'Mari' tells the life-affirming story of professional dancer and choreographer Charlotte (Bobbi Jene Smith), as she prepares for a new show. Uniquely using the poetic expression of dance to drive the narrative, Charlotte’s world is turned upside down when she discovers she is pregnant and also that her grandmother Mari is coming to the end of life, forcing her to confront her past in order to choose the future she wants.
As the weekend with her family progresses, Charlotte’s own mortality sinks in, her identity unravels and truths about the women in her life surface. Lost, she is driven to find new meaning in places she'd previously avoided or dismissed, leaving her changed forever. With original choreography, MARI follows Charlotte on a personal journey that goes from her grandmother’s deathbed to the prospect of motherhood.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Create Strand - World premiere
Part artwork, part documentary, NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN tells the stories behind ‘field postcards’ one of the few communication options WWI soldiers had with their families. Nothing was to be written on them, communication was only allowed through the prescribed phrases. Moving, haunting and emotive, an award-winning exploration of the human stories beyond the edges of the postcards set to an original score by composer Anna Meredith, commissioned by the BBC VR Hub and created by 59 Productions.
Official Selection SXSW 2019 - Virtual Cinema Competition
After a one-night stand on New Year's Eve, Elena and Jake fall madly in love. Within weeks they are living together, and not long after they are trying for a child.
When the baby doesn’t materialize, pressure builds and the idea of a family starts to overshadow their relationship. A passionate, romantic, and contemporary love story, about the struggle to remain in love when life doesn’t give you everything you want it to.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - First Feature Competition - World premiere
On an uninhabited island 20 miles from the rugged Scottish coast, three lighthouse keepers arrive for their six-week shift. As Thomas (Peter Mullan), James (Gerard Butler) and Donald (Connor Swindells) settle into their usual, solitary routines, something unexpected and potentially life-changing occurs when they stumble upon something that isn’t theirs to keep. Where did it come from? Who does it belong to? A boat appears in the distance that might hold the answer to these questions… What follows is a tense battle for survival as personal greed replaces loyalty - and fed by isolation and paranoia, three honest men are led down a path to destruction.
Following his Oscar winning 'The White Helmets', Orlando von Einsiedel turns his camera on his own family as they attempt to cope with a devastating loss.
When his brother, newly diagnosed as schizophrenic and suffering from intense depression, took his own life at 22, Orlando and his other two siblings buried the trauma, rarely talking about it. Over a decade later, the remaining family set out on a hiking tour, visiting landscapes Evelyn liked to walk, to reflect on his life and death. The result is an intensely personal and moving take on the emotional impact of suicide within a family and a powerful account of the benefits of creating safe spaces for emotional communication. Shot in a subjective style and against the stunning backdrop of the British countryside, Evelyn is an emotionally raw film that documents the difficult, yet rewarding, attempt to navigate the rocky highlands of collective trauma. (LFF Brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Documentary Competition - World premiere
In the 1970s a group of workers faced with economic crisis, austerity and threats of technology taking their jobs, responded with an audacious plan, developing alternatives to the military products their company made, including wind turbines and hybrid cars.
""It’s an insult to our skills and intelligence that we can produce a Concorde and not enough powerful heaters for all those old-age pensioners who are dying in the cold." A worker at Lucas Aerospace eloquently sums up the core problem of contemporary Western society – one that caters to the interests of a wealthy few. He’s one of the designers of the ambitious strategy proposed by the workforce, in 1976, to shift their company’s assets to manufacture socially-useful products, which was ultimately undermined by both the government and corporate interests.
Director Steve Sprung brilliantly draws their story into the present, delivering it with great intelligence, clarity and civic commitment. 'The Plan: That Came From The Bottom Up' is a gripping essay, reflecting on the dark consequences of capitalism on society and proposing an encouraging alternative for a troubling present. "(LFF Brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Documentary Competition - World premiere
An intimate documentary portrait of Kimberly and Kai Shappley directed by Daresha Kyi and produced by Lindsey Dryden and Shaleece Haas: A Christian mother rejects her community’s beliefs as her 7-year-old transgender daughter navigates life at school, where she’s been banned from the girls’ bathroom.
Official Selection SXSW 2019 - Documentary Shorts Competition
