Projects

Synopsis

"The four essay films which comprise ‘The Seasons in Quincy’ each take different aspects of British writer and thinker John Berger’s life in the Haute-Savoie, and combine ideas and motifs from Berger’s own work with the atmosphere of his mountain home. Each film was created as an individual work of art but they combine to make a feature film... showing how film can move beyond text, and beyond fine art, to offer a multifaceted and multi-layered portrait. These are more than documentary films – they are exercises in thinking in film." Derek Jarman Lab
'Ways of Listening', (Colin MacCabe), deals with fathers and friendship. 'Spring', (Christopher Roth), considers Berger's writing on our relationship with animals. 'A Song for Politics', (Colin MacCabe and Bartek Dziadosz), reflects on politics through archive footage, song and a discussion between Berger and several young left-wing thinkers. 'Harvest', (Tilda Swinton), revisits Quincy to meditate on belonging and continuity with Berger and his son Yves.
Berlinale 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

Artist Jumana Manna sets out in search of the musical diversity of historical Palestine. Drawing on her research into the German-Jewish ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (1892-1939) and his work in Palestine, the film follows Manna’s exchanges with musicians as she encounters them in their homes and places of work and worship.
Berlinale 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.
Dickinson wrote a poem a day, but only a fraction of her output was published throughout her lifetime. She was extremely shy, but with a wry, lively sense of humour and loved to laugh or to be made to laugh. Her friendships were intense but it was within the family that she found her greatest happiness. Her life is one of quiet dignity, and the poetry magnificent. All the terror and beauty of the world distilled down to the quintessence of meaning and expression.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Official Competition

Synopsis

A man doles out fifteen years worth of advice to a young woman with thoroughly unexpected results.
Official Selection Berlinale 2016 - Generation 14 Plus - World premiere

Synopsis

Downtown Cairo, 2009. Khalid, a 35-year-old filmmaker is struggling to make a film that captures the soul of his city while facing loss in his own life. With the help of his friends, who send him footage from their lives in Beirut, Baghdad and Berlin, he finds the strength to keep going through the difficulty and beauty of living In the last days of the city.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Debate Strand

Synopsis

Set to the verses of W.H. Auden's 1939 poem 'Refugee Blues', the film charts a day in 'the jungle', the refugee camp outside Calais. More intimate and unlike much of what has been seen in the mass media, this documentary poem counterpoints the camp’s harsh reality of frequent clashes with the French riot police with its inhabitants’ longing for a better future.
Official Selection Berlinale 2016 - Generation 14plus - World premiere

Synopsis

A jet-black comedy about two corrupt cops in New Mexico who set out to blackmail and frame every criminal unfortunate enough to cross their path. Things take a sinister turn, however, when they try to intimidate someone who is more dangerous than they are. Or is he?
Berlinale 2016 - World premiere

Synopsis

Saar is a gay man from a religious family in Israel. After being kicked out of his conservative kibbutz because of his sexual orientation, Saar flees to London where he enjoys a gay lifestyle denied to him in Israel. He lives the dream, but wakes up to a nightmare when he discovers that he has contracted HIV. When he breaks the news to his family, they struggle with fears and prejudices. With the support and warmth of Saar's surrogate brothers - the London Gay Men’s Chorus - he begins a reconciliation process with his biological family in Israel.
Saar finds himself torn between the two worlds and must make a decision: should he return to Israel and embrace his family once more, or stay in London and live in exile forever. Saar and the rest of the London Gay Men's Chorus provide a glorious soundtrack for this tender, honest and intimate film by acclaimed directors Barak Heymann and Tomer Heymann ('Mr. Gaga', 'Paper Dolls' and 'I Shot My Love'). Shot over several years, this documentary is about the power of forgiveness and the power that home has, no matter how far we go.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Journey Strand

Synopsis

An eight year-old tomboy challenges gender expectations when forced to make an Easter Bonnet with the girls. Then, when confronted with a family with two mums, she begins to question traditional family dynamics. Bravely subverting convention, her vivid imagination and resourcefulness leads her on a journey of discovery around her neighbourhood that will have radical and far reaching effects.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Journey Strand

Synopsis

A photograph circulates, showing five men staring out of a window. Actually, four look out; the last man breaks protocol and looks at the camera. The stage is a bombed out building. All five men wear military fatigues. The colour must have been olive green.
The photograph, snapped by a Magnum freelancer, is a glowing artefact. Alongside it is a blurry newspaper photograph showing the Dhaka funeral of two men at the national Baitul Mokarram mosque: fighters for Palestine. The two photographs are evidence of the presence of Bangladeshi guerrillas in Lebanon in the 1970s, joining and fighting for the PLO in its struggle first for domination, then only survival.
Official Selection Berlinale 2016 - Forum Expanded

Synopsis

It is 1944 and World War II is reaching its climax. The Allies are poised to invade France and finally defeat the German army. But in Walmington-on-Sea morale amongst the Home Guard is low. Their new mission then – to patrol the Dover army base – is a great chance to revive spirits and reputation, that is until glamorous journalist Rose Winters arrives to write about their exploits, setting the pulses racing and putting the local women on red alert. MI5 then discover a radio signal sent direct to Berlin from Walmington-on-Sea. There’s a spy on the loose! The outcome of the war is suddenly at stake, and it falls to our unlikely heroes to stand up and be counted.

A cinematic remake of the classic British television sitcom 'Dad's Army'.

Synopsis

A Hollywood fixer in the 1950s works to keep the studio's stars in line.
Official Selection Berlinale 2016 - Opening Film (Out of Competition)