Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

Against the backdrop of sunbaked parking lots, deserted courthouses, and empty suburban homes - the familiar spaces of true crime, stripped of all action and spectacle - a filmmaker describes his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point. The true crime genre’s ubiquity is driven by people’s endless fascination, disgust, and - bizarrely -search for comfort in genre conventions that still have the ability to generate complex emotions despite their predictability and familiarity. In this wholly original, self-aware cinematic work, filmmaker and multimedia artist Charlie Shackleton dissects the true crime genre by recreating it. Using Bay Area landscapes, archival material, reenactments, film and TV clips, and voice-over to walk the viewer through what his film would have been like and why, this film is a captivating and entertaining experience that will forever change how you watch your next murder programme. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2025 - World premiere Official Selection True/False Film Fest 2025 Official Selection SXSW Film & TV Festival 2025 - Best of the Fests Official Selection First Look 2025 (New York, Museum of the Moving Image) Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025 Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025

Synopsis

KING OF THE APOCALYPSE takes us into the heart of the American militia movement with Dakota Adams, the de-radicalized son of Stewart Rhodes – founder of the Oath Keepers who is now serving 18 years in prison for his role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack in 2021. With exclusive access to Rhodes, and framed by the unique perspective of his estranged family, we tell the story of the enigmatic militant leader’s origins, his turbulent family life, and his descent into paranoia and extremism. With Rhodes in prison, even more radical militia leaders are emerging, such as Mike Dunn of the Boogaloo Bois, who believes that January 6 was just a dress rehearsal for the real civil war that's coming. Mike is the antithesis of gentle Dakota. While one young American claws his way out from extremism, we watch the other being sucked deeper in. As we immerse ourselves in their ideas and beliefs, we reveal the underpinnings of political violence and gain essential insight into where America could be heading.

Synopsis

Flesh as film, and film as flesh... An amateur archaeologist arrives on a desolate peatland in Lancashire, their mind filled with the strange power that peat-bog waters hold to preserve organic matter. They have come to excavate the peatland. They have come to exhume a body. But, in digging into the peat - and into the past - they unearth much more than mere relics. The peat holds forgotten histories, uneasy truths, and vast stores of climate-change-accelerating carbon. Reflecting the attempt to document and preserve this landscape via the moving image, the film becomes both a lament and a call to action for local peat-bog restoration and protection. A queer eco-horror which reflects on what it means to bury, to archive, to capture, to unearth. Shot in collaboration with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, the film becomes both a lament and call to action for local peat-bog conservation. Official Selection London Short Film Festival 2025

Synopsis

Aiden, a widowed robotics expert channels the grief of losing his ten year-old son into creating ‘Robin’, a fully functioning robotic doll. It finally seems he has found someone to keep him company in his lofty mansion. Aiden’s estranged nephew and his fiancé unexpectedly return to the manor hoping to patch up the family's rocky past before their big day. The loved-up pair are instantly creeped out by the lonely man’s staggeringly realistic creation. A series of terrifying events leave the young couple suspecting there's a more sinister side to Robin that even Aiden is aware of.

Synopsis

When Helen David first founded her fashion label, English Eccentrics, in the early 80s, she was living in a Brixton Squat and selling her designs from a market stall in Camden. By the mid-90s, she was dressing stars including Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Prince, Helen Mirren and Helena Bonham-Carter. Then, at the turn of the millennium and during the height of her success, her brand unexpectedly collapsed. Twenty years later, her son – filmmaker Oliver David – investigates what happened. Looking through her life’s work, he traces her creative journey, through meteoric success and devastating failure, and discovers how she reinvented herself after losing everything.

Synopsis

Tensions arise amidst the heat of a busy Pakistani takeaway. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Short Film Competition Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2026 BAFTA Film Awards 2026 - Nomination - Best British Short Film

Synopsis

Dublin 1985. Teenager Billy is cultivating an obsession: he’s tracking down VHS tapes of films branded 'Video Nasties' – The video nasty ruckus was fuelled in the early days of home video by conservative activist Mary Whitehouse, concerned about the harmful influence of certain horror films deemed 'extreme'. Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR) 2025

Synopsis

A film that is inspired by the novel 'The Baron in the Trees' by Italo Calvino. Calvino's book tells the adventures of a boy who climbs up a tree to spend the rest of his life inhabiting an arboreal kingdom. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2025 - World premiere

Synopsis

A young man's New Year's Eve celebrations turn terrifying when his friends break out some recreational drugs. He spirals into a paranoid nightmare where he’s confronted then stalked by a thug intent on violence, feeling there is no escape or safe place to weather this storm. His friends have abandoned him, they then turn out to be part of the torture – before he’s released from his nightmare and back at the start of the evening.

Synopsis

The personal story of three exceptional astronauts who came together in America’s race for the Moon - Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The events that followed shook the US space program to the core, and has left a lasting impact on their families and on all space flights since. With exceptional access granted to the production team along with a rich ingredient of unseen personal archive, it's a story of jeopardy, adventure, tragedy and recovery, as told by those closest to the crew. Ultimately, it’s an inspiring story of the human spirit, as we continue our quest towards new horizons in space and look to the new generation of Artemis astronauts prepared to face the risks in doing so.

Synopsis

A musician is invited to perform at a remote arctic research outpost for the resident scientists, an unwelcoming world which tests her resolve but expands her audience beyond the atmosphere. Official Selection London Short Film Festival 2025 Official Selection Frameline Film Festiva 2025 Official Selection Palm Springs Shortfest 2025

Synopsis

Mark Gwynne Jones tells the story of his family's terrifying 1980's encounter with a celestial entity in Matlock, Derbyshire.