An experimental narrative film that paints a portrait of Japanese performance artist Ayumi Lanoire.
The film opens as a telephone call between the subject and Person X, which meanders and leads the audience through the various layers that make up her persona leading one to question whether she is, in fact, a myth or reality.
A woman with mild agoraphobia lives her life in a high rise apartment as she experiences various moments of environmental aggression, trauma and psychosis.
As The Beatles end their gruelling tour schedule in August 1966 they return to the studio to record the landmark ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album.
As one of the biggest selling records of all time, described by Rolling Stone magazine simply as “The most important rock & roll album ever made…”, ‘Sgt Pepper’ (released in June 1967) marked a pivotal moment in the 1960s, cementing the advent of Psychedelia and the Summer of Love.
This documentary journies through various solo projects to the release of Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, touching on flower power, John Lennon meeting Yoko Ono, LSD, meditation, Jimi Hendrix, the death of Brian Epstein, Abbey Road Studios and the Magical Mystery Tour.
Among the interviewees featured in the film are Hunter Davies (the band’s official biographer), Pete Best (the band’s original drummer), music manager Simon Napier-Bell and author Philip Norman, who has written biographies of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and of Paul McCartney among others.
Based on the true story of the 2015 Hatton Garden jewel heist.
A group of older career criminals who were variously nicknamed the "diamond geezers", "bad grandpas” and the “Enfield Expendables” were recruited by an ex-con to carry out what appeared to be a 'perfect' crime. During a long weekend in April, the group tunneled into a London vault and carried away millions of pounds worth of jewellery, gold and other goods.
Mad To Be Normal reveals the story of R.D. Laing, a psychiatrist known as one of Scotland's greatest thinkers. Working out of Kingsley Hall - situated in East London throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Laing performed various daring experiments on people who were at the time known as disturbed.
His methods included using LSD and a type of self-healing, known as metanoia, much to the dismay and outrage of the psychiatric community.
A meditative, immersive tribute to the astonishing work and achievements of naturalist, inventor and pioneering filmmaker F. Percy Smith. Smith worked in the early years of the 20th century, developing various cinematographic and micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action. Working in a number of public roles, including the Royal Navy and British Instructional Films, Smith was prolific and driven, often directing several films simultaneously, apparently on a mission to explore and capture nature's hidden terrains.
This film is an interpretative edit that combines Smith's original footage with a new contemporary score by tindersticks to create a hypnotic, alien yet familiar dreamscape that connects us to the sense of wonder Smith must have felt as he peered through his own lenses and seen these micro-worlds for the first time. (LFF brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Sonic Strand - World premiere
An intimate and vivid account of a young girl’s real and fantastical adventure in a remote forest one evening.
Glasgow-based artist-filmmaker Margaret Salmon's debut feature is not only a loving homage to classic children’s films such as Ray Ashley’s 'Little Fugitive', Jean Renoir’s 'The River' and Albert Lamorisse’s 'The Red Balloon', but draws from nature studies of the past, such as Mary Field’s 'Secrets of Nature' series.
Shot on 35mm in various locations around Scotland, Salmon draws inspiration from a range of cinematic movements as well as wildlife documentaries to produce a lyrical and sensual portrait of a child’s eye perspective on the natural world. (LFF brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere
A feature length film exploring themes of identity, culture and the construction of history. Shot on 35mm film in various Californian deserts that provide a stage in which to re-enact the negotiations of an archaeologist from Cairo with a members of tribe who guard ancient culture hidden in tombs lost in the desert.
The scenario for the film was adapted from the 1969 Egyptian film 'A Night of Counting the Years' directed by Shadi Abdel Salam, creating a layered story that echoes from ancient Egypt to the diversity of desert ecology and recent archaeological digs for lost Hollywood film sets. Working in collaboration with the musician and composer Tom Challenger a new choral composition was created and recorded for the film, drawing on traditional and modern acoustic techniques to reflect the shifting sands of the desert landscapes.
The divisive and clandestine world of Crop Circles comes under threat when an ambitious TV Journalist investigating their creation plans to expose the truth. To call Honeystreet a village is generous but this tiny canal side hamlet not far from Stonehenge is Crop Circle Grand Central Station. Frustrated Brazilian TV Journalist Lara has been sent on a "nonsense mission" to the heart of the English countryside with Yossi, a war-torn Cameraman, to discover the truth about these mysterious formations. There they meet long-term investigator, the elusive and broken Hatter, desperate to reconnect with his son Dean. Only the local barmaid Aideen seems to know the truth about this clandestine world, but if she does she's in no hurry to tell. As they explore the various formations that appear overnight they are drawn deeper into the enigma of hovering lights, Celtic mythology, ancient monuments, irate landowners, UFO enthusiasts and researchers of these unexplained events to discover both the beauty and the danger in the truth they seek. 5 lost souls - each hoping to solve the unexplained phenomenon whilst resolving their own darker issues. The answers are written into the ground...
Two young, straight, Premier League footballers share a hotel room the night before a key match. Out of nowhere, one kisses the other. The emotional impact of this ‘pass’ plays out through the next ten years of their lives – a decade of success and failure, secrets and lies, in a sporting world where image is everything.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Debate Strand
"Because she´s been alone for a long time and there´s no one else, she might as well live on the moon." This film piece is about existence, about being present and in the ´now´ of the moment which the film conveys as it seamlessly glides through various states of day and night.
'Hannibal in Rafah: A Reconstruction of One Bloody Day in the 2014 Gaza War from User Generated Videos'
A detailed reconstruction of the events on one day in Rafah, Gaza during the 'Hannibal Directive', drawing on material produced by the Forensic Architecture project.
The project stemmed from an examination of the Israeli army’s response to the capture of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin and its implementation of the Hannibal Directive – a controversial command designed to deal with captures of soldiers by unleashing massive firepower on persons, vehicles and buildings in the vicinity of the attack, despite the risk to civilians and the captured soldier(s).
"Because our investigation team was denied access to Gaza, Forensic Architecture developed a number of techniques aiming to reconstruct the events from hundreds of images and videos recorded by professional and citizen-journalists. The images were thereafter located in a 3D model of Rafah. This resulted to the Image Complex, a device that allowed us to explore the spatial and temporal connections between the various sources and reconstruct the unfolding of events. Forensic Architecture... also located witness testimonies, delivered after the war, within this 3D model, and corroborated the reported events with other audio-visual material." The resulting report was presented as a Human Rights case by Amnesty International.
'Hannibal in Rafah: A Reconstruction of One Bloody Day in the 2014 Gaza War from User Generated Video' is a selection of clips taken from the project, composed and brought together in a text presentation.
Official Selection Berlinale 2016 - Forum Expanded - Visionary Archives
