Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

The documentary film explores an unknown chapter in post South African liberation. In 1993, Lady Anya Sainsbury, a former principal ballerina at Royal Ballet in London, met Nelson Mandela at a party in South Africa. They both agreed for her to set up a dance scholarship programme at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London, which provided 23 of South Africa’s talented young dance students between 1995 to 2003, with the opportunity to follow their dance dreams. The film highlights the personal experiences of six of those dancers that subsequently met Mandela in London at a dinner party in Lady Sainsbury’s house in 1999, they are Mandela’s Dancers. The film combines archival dance photographs and video footage spanning over fifteen years, with excerpts from the student performances and candid recollections. Mandela’s Dancers is not about the triumph of the human spirit or any other of the top 10 favourite dance clichés. It’s about something far rarer and of vastly greater significance – it’s about real life. It’s about how Nelson Mandela changed the face of contemporary dance!

Synopsis

From the future, a memory in the form of a poem evokes a happy childhood before a turbulent war. This memory comes in the shape of a space trip that links the present (words) and the past (still photos) through the war (moving image), creating an audiovisual experience that binds the viewer to a mysterious place where adulthood (consciousness), adolescence (cinema) and childhood (photo and music) live together in a permanent tension.

Synopsis

The Pagoda in London’s Kew Gardens is rarely open to the public. It was open for a short time last year and I took the opportunity to climb all 253 wooden steps having first done so 60 years before.

Synopsis

In the city of London, Alex Powell is a successful banker running away from his past. When an injured young woman arrives at his front door his world spirals to the complex depths of their secret childhood together.

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Unable to fly the nest due to the economic crisis that grips Spain, a penniless, young couple have trouble consummating their fledgling relationship in their parents’ homes. As they become increasingly desperate to make love and with no money to afford a hotel, they are forced to look to popular public hotspots commonly used for sex among young people, known by the locals as “pikaderos”. However, things are never as easy as they seem, and their relationship is quickly tested as they try to break free from the shackles of a crumbling economy.

Synopsis

A city PR girl goes on the run, accused of leaking information from the military supply company where she works. Pursued by ex-soldiers, she hides with her brother, a protester living in a squat, who she had dismissed as a loser. When she realises he is a member of the Redistributors, a group famous for hacking tax evader’s accounts and passing money to the poor, she asks to meet with the group’s charismatic leader, Michael Manning, hoping he can bring down her former employer before they get to her.

Synopsis

Who needs a home and family when you've got four wheels?

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The Ambiguity of David Thomas Broughton is a music documentary following the creative process of one of the UK’s most enigmatic musicians and performers. As a musical act, David Thomas Broughton is almost unclassifiable. His live shows are a exhilarating mix of musical experimentation and performance art, underlined by a raw unpredictability. His recorded material is dark but beautiful, marrying traditional folk with a surrealist edge. Off-stage, he’s an introvert with a passion for bird watching. Who is the real David Thomas Broughton? Through a series of interviews with friends, family and collaborators, filmmaker Greg Butler attempts to unravel this ambiguity. His journey takes him to David’s home town of Otley, where we track David’s creative process as he records new material to be played at the End of the Road Festival.

Synopsis

On her way back home from school, 14-year-old Sky (Alana Boden) is followed home, the rest is a blur. Her big sister Jessy-May (Jessica Barden) a tough, isolated 16-year-old attempts to protect her family the only way she knows how.

Synopsis

On her way back home from school, 14-year-old Sky is followed home by a gang, the rest is a blur. Her big sister Jessy-May takes matters into her own hands.

Synopsis

A film about a time-travelling, brutalist architecture, utopian desire, digital decay, and the demolition of John Madin’s Birmingham Central Library. Michael Lightborne’s experimental film uses abstraction, digital processing, and a throbbing synth soundtrack to uncover the ecstatic life of a doomed building.

Synopsis

In the dead of night a security guard offers to help a distressed and fleeing girl. Hesitant at first, and despite her lack of English she, accepts his help. Is he the good samaritan he appears to be? And is the girl what she appears to be?