Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

Violet, an aspiring singer, dreams of pop stardom as an escape from her small English town and a shattered family life. With the help of an unlikely mentor, Violet enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition. Set in the world of pop music, a visceral and uplifting story about growing up, dreaming big, and finding your voice. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Special Presentations - World premiere

Synopsis

Gripped by a failing marriage and the responsibilities of having a young son, Lydia finds solace in her growing bond with the town’s recently returned female doctor Jean. But this is the 1950s in a post-WWII rural Scotland, and the womens’ relationship prompts raised eyebrows in their provincial circles. A heart-wrenching portrait of a love against all odds. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Special Presentations - World premiere

Synopsis

A young man's calculated reassessment of his infamous, and ultimately disastrous, childhood correspondence with an American television star. A decade after the death of the TV star, the young man, now an actor himself reminisces the written correspondence he shared with the star, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Special Presentations - World premiere

Synopsis

A genre redefining film starring the ultimate leading lady, Athena, an elephant matriarch who will do everything in her power to protect her family when they are forced to leave their waterhole. Narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor, this epic story of love, loss and coming home is a timely love letter to a species that could be gone from our planet in a generation. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - TIFF Docs - World premiere Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019

Synopsis

A poor agricultural labourer leads a double life in the village's last remaining cornfield. But the harvest is approaching. Official Selection Telluride Film Festival 2018 - World premiere Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Winner, Short Cuts Award, Best International Short Film Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2019 - International Short Film Programme BAFTA Film Awards 2019 - Nominated, Best British Short Film

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A mysterious young British man (Dev Patel) journeys across Pakistan and India. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Special Presentations - World premiere

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A beautiful and enigmatic collection: wedding architecture; animals; John Cage; and John Ashbery Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2018 - Wavelengths - International premiere

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

Synopsis

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.