Projects matching: Josh Appignanesi

Synopsis

A feature documentary journeying into the depths of the COP climate conference in Dubai. Are these enormous get-togethers all about false promises that hinder change? Or are they the only hope we've got for world-saving unity? With his innocuous selfie-stick, filmmaker Josh Appignanesi moves unnoticed through Dubai's seductive slickness to reveal the talks, meetings and backroom parties behind the strange mixture of global cry for help and political jostling that is a COP. Lost in translation, he comes face to face with the irony of an oil baron hosting this last-chance climate saloon in a techno-utopian leisure city -- that, er, happens to be built in a burning desert. But then the business-as-usual is ruptured by a searing encounter with indigenous voices from the frontline of climate injustice…

Synopsis

What does it take for us to act on the climate crisis – especially if we’re the kind of person who should already be acting? In this funny, relatable portrait, a concerned yet ineffectual dad finds the first step is letting those unbearable feelings of climate anxiety in, instead of pushing them aside. But as he meets others like him, he discovers how oil-backed propagandists funded our denial and paralysis. He sets out to unmask the vested interests responsible, helping raise a generation’s leading authors in a vibrant chorus. MY EXTINCTION is a revealingly honest account of how to feel your feelings, act on your privilege, and get active when threatened with extinction.

Synopsis

The Tate Gallery recently staged a retrospective of the surrealist Leonora Carrington (1917- 2011), famously the lover of Max Ernst. Novelist Chloe Aridjis, who knew the artist from her native Mexico, was made guest curator of the exhibition. Set between the real-life curation of the Tate show and something more fantasised, FEMALE HUMAN ANIMAL sees Chloe increasingly disappointed by her milieu - and increasingly haunted by Carrington’s strange artworks. When an elusive, brooding man seems to offer more, Chloe begins to pursue him, but is she hunter, or hunted? Enabled by Carrington’s own defiantly mysterious mythology, she descends into a world of obsession. Shot on a rare '80s video camera with a unique look, and deftly weaving fact and fiction, the film offers a darkly romantic fantasia of a woman who goes beyond societal norms, putting on screen the lurid unconscious of our new sexual politics. Official Selection BAFICI Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival 2018 - World premiere

Synopsis

What started as a home movie became a committed project when Josh and Devorah found themselves unable to conceive. An endearing if ironic journey gets serious when life-threatening complications emerge. Their relationship is tested to the brink as they confront birth, death, love and loss all at once. A creative documentary about becoming a parent... and how to reconceive yourself. Fiction director Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife as they undergo the ordeal of becoming parents in the era of man-children and assisted reproduction. Faced with fatherhood, Josh spirals comically into an envious career funk. But life-threatening complications emerge - the couple are tested to the brink, confronting shattering losses. A portrait of our generation going through a revolution in reproduction - forced to find new ways to think about ourselves as creative beings. With contributions from writers, filmmakers and thinkers including Slavoj Zizek, John Berger, Darian Leader, Zadie Smith and Sophie Fiennes. Universal yet still taboo, a film for everyone who has children, wants them, or still feels like a child themselves.

Synopsis

The story of Shmilu, a Hasidic Jew in crisis, torn between his community and the romantic possibilities of trendy East London. SAMUEL-613 is the first fictional film made with the UK's Hasidic population, gaining unprecedented access for a drama including non-professional actors and Yiddish dialogue. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Dare Strand

Synopsis

Meet MAHMUD NASIR, London taxi driver, loving husband, doting father and something of a 'relaxed' Muslim. Does the 'F' word occasionally pass his lips? It's hardly worth mentioning. Does he say his prayers five times a day? Of course! Well, usually. Does he fast every day of Ramadan? Who’s counting anyway? He may not be the most observant, but in his heart he is as Muslim as it gets.   But after his mother's death a discovery turns Mahmud's world upside down. He finds his birth certificate which reveals that not only was he adopted at birth but he's Jewish, and his real name is Solly Shimshillewitz! As Mahmud tumbles headlong into a full scale identity crisis, the only person he can turn to is LENNY, a drunken Jewish cabbie who agrees to give him lessons in Jewishness, which start with how to dance like Topol. Oy vey.

Synopsis

A film about memory, loss and survival; Eva Lipschitz is a survivor, but she is now locked away in the twilight world of Alzheimer's disease. We see the world from her point of view, at her eye level, and we see how a chance encounter with a caring young nurse breaks through the barriers.  

Synopsis

Devoutly religious Ruth returns from Israel to care for her dying mother. But when she tries to bring estranged brother David back into the fold, in accordance with her mother's wishes, the result is a forbidden game under the guise of religious law - verging on the darkest realms of sexual obsession. A parable about belief and desire set in the cloistered world of the Orthodox Jewish community, Song of Songs explores the links between faith and violence, denial and longing, and 'the return of religion.'

Synopsis

A romantic comedy about two Londoners who meet on a blind date. Too busy to bother getting to know each other, they fantasize a whole relationship - meeting, sex, the split - in only 9 ½ minutes. A satire on modern sexual mores, that twists our expectations of the rom-com genre.