Textile artist Allan Brown spends seven years making a dress by hand, just from the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles. This is ‘hedgerow couture’, the greenest of slow fashion, and it is also Allan's medicine. It’s how he survives the death of his wife that left him and their children bereft, and how he finds a beautiful way to honour her.
The challenge of making zero carbon clothing sourced within a few miles of his home means re-learning ancient crafts and recalls the fairy tale 'Wild Swans'.
THE NETTLE DRESS follows Allan’s whole journey through all the seasons and years. Foraging, spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing the cloth. Finally the healing vision of the dress back in the woods where the nettles were picked, worn by one of his daughters. 'Grasping the Nettle' is at the heart of the film. Making a dress this way becomes devotional, with every thread representing hours of mindful loving craft. Over seven years Allan is transformed by the process just as the nettles are. Both the film and dress, a hand-spun labour of love in the truest sense, THE NETTLE DRESS is a modern-day fairytale and hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft.
Elizabeth and Nicholas Newall disappear amidst the Great Storm of 1987 on Jersey. Mismatching alibis, gossip and questionable police work points to their sons, Rod and Mark. The case becomes a murder investigation when forensics discover blood, but without substantial evidence, the case goes cold. The Newalls are declared dead and the brothers leave the island, claiming the nearly £1million inheritance. Mark thrives in finance but Rod is consumed by guilt while travelling. Rod returns in 1992 and the police covertly record his murder confession. Rod leaves partway, outmanoeuvring the police in a motorway chase but is later arrested at gun-point in international waters on the HMS Argonaut, beginning a long extradition process in Gibraltar. Mark is arrested in Paris, but continues to manipulate Rod and the legal proceedings. Corruption, bribery and escape attempts lead the prosecutors to agree a secret deal with the defence. Rod pleads guilty to double murder and reveals the bodies whilst Mark pleads guilty only to aiding and abetting. Rod serves 12 years, Mark just 20 months. Mark claims the inheritance and now both have disappeared - neither the police nor the Jersey community know their whereabouts. Questions of motive, corruption and money remain unanswered.
1967. A militant white supremacist government dominates South Africa. Apartheid laws are ruthlessly enforced. Organised opposition is destroyed. Mandela is in prison. Underground networks smashed.
In exile, ANC leader Oliver Tambo has a plan to re-organise a new underground. That will take time. Right now, he needs to get a message of hope to the oppressed millions inside South Africa.
Using apartheid’s prejudices against itself, he recruits white sympathisers from London to run underground missions into the heart of the racist state. He tasks Ronnie Kasrils, a charismatic young ANC fighter, with leading the London operation.
Ronnie’s recruits smuggle leaflets into the country to put in the mail. Through Joyce, a black journalist and ANC activist, we see leaflets reach individuals, but attempts to inspire a wider audience result in torture and imprisonment. No message of hope to millions.
In response, a secret propaganda weapon is invented – the leaflet bucket bomb. Despite dangers, Sean, Steve, Kathy and other young Londoners, volunteer to deploy them in South Africa. Spectacular explosions. Thousands of leaflets. No one is hurt and the message gets through. Success. Under pressure, Ronnie selects Sean for another mission. It’s a trap. Sean is now on death row.
Eye-witness testimony. Archive. Reconstruction.
A debt ridden down on their luck couple decide to take control of their destiny by kidnapping a backbench politician. Only there’s one big problem - his wife refuses to pay the ransom. However, just as they’re about to let him go, he offers to pay the money himself as long as they keep him hostage, knowing how good the publicly is for his political profile. A taught, satirical chamber piece for our current times.
From a war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan to a legal battle in the UK, Marine A (w/t) details one of the most controversial events in the 20-year war on terror. On the 15th September 2011 an unarmed and wounded Taliban insurgent was shot in the chest by a British Royal Marine, who went on to tell his men that he “just broke the Geneva Convention”. With an exclusive interview with Alexander Blackman, known to most as Marine A, it reveals the story of that one day in Helmand. The 1x90’ feature documentary includes never seen before, recently recovered, combat footage, and many who have never spoken on camera before, Marine A takes audiences into the dark heart of those minutes in battle and the ensuing four-year legal campaign that his wife waged to set him free.
Alison is no girl-next-door. Lost in a life of crime, she’s longing to escape but can’t see a way out. When she meets Sam, a damaged soul with a troubled past, he opens her eyes to the fact that life can be a beautiful thing, if you meet it halfway. Alison realises that if she doesn’t make some changes, she isn’t long for this world.
Together Alison and Sam hit the road in search of the daughter Alison feels she abandoned years earlier. Plagued by grief, Sam keeps his demons at bay just long enough to help Alison realise she is not a product of her circumstances.
But, the dangers Alison has become accustomed to her abusive father GED and her violent pimp MAX, are never far behind. The connections she makes on her journey force her to realise she needs to rid her life of these evil men for good.
MOMENT OF GRACE is a story about empowerment, set Halifax, Yorkshire, it tells a story of the kind of people you would usually stay clear of, yet underlines that even when a life seem lost and hopeless, it can be touched by a moment of grace that changes everything.
Hank, a loveable dog with a head full of dreams about becoming a great samurai, sets off in search of his destiny. Unfortunately for him, what he finds instead is the strange and unwelcoming town of Kakamucho. There, he sticks out like a sore thumb, for he is a dog and everyone else is...a cat! And as we all know, cats really, REALLY don't like dogs.
Desperate to please the townsfolk, Hank unwittingly becomes part of the dastardly narcissistic Ika Chu's plans to rid Kakamucho of all its inhabitants. Just one small obstacle stands in Ika's way of world domination (okay, Kakamucho-domination) and his evil plan is to trick Hank into helping him, by driving out the townsfolk forever.
Step forward Jimbo, a once mighty samurai who has since fallen from grace, and Emiko, a feisty kitten who shares Hank's dreams. Together this mismatched trio will embark on a journey that sees them overcome prejudices and learn the true meaning of friendship.
Set in post WW2 Venice Italy, American Army Col. Richard Cantwell, haunted by the war, is a bona fide hero who faces news of his illness with stoic disregard. Determined to spend a weekend in quiet solitude, he commandeers a military driver to facilitate a visit to his old haunts in Venice. As Cantwell's plans begin to unravel, a chance encounter with a remarkable young woman begins to re kindle in him the hope of renewal. Based on the last full-length novel Hemingway published in his lifetime, ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES captures a fleeting moment of immortality where time stands still. The story contains the great Hemingway themes of love, war, youth, and age.
Captain Pugwash, the cowardly pirate captain sets off on a mission to rescue cabin boy Tom’s father, who has been marooned on a volcanic island with a hoard of treasure protected by an army of angry ghosts.
Live-action family adventure film based on the popular TV character.
It is early 2020 and 23 year old singer songwriter Lewis Capaldi has just returned home to his parent’s house in rural West Lothian, Scotland, leaving behind a record breaking stadium tour, awards, screaming fans and history making chart success. Finding himself back where he grew up, with his family and old mates, this is a moment of relative calm. But Lewis is at a crossroads. When fame has changed your life beyond all recognition, how do you reconnect to where you came from?
Caught between the pull of fame and the grounding roots of home, Lewis wrestles with the immense pressure of delivering that old Rock and Roll cliché ‘The Difficult Second Album’. From writing new material in a shed at the bottom of the garden at his parents’ house, to recording and then releasing a new album, this young artist will have the courage to invite us into this deeply personal process, laying out his craft and life, exploring his relationship with his roots, his hopes and fears for all the world to see.
In this all-access music documentary, award-winning studio Pulse Films partners with recent breakout artist Lewis Capaldi at a pivotal moment in his career.
Oh, and seeing that this is Lewis Capaldi, it will be a proper laugh too.
What happens to our world when technology exceeds humanity?
Ellen is an agent sent on a mission to seek and destroy a professor who’s been illicitly trading government information to foreign territories. However, the Professor reveals a source of intelligence so powerful that Ellen has no choice but to spare the Professor’s life. The unlikely couple set across the barren landscapes of England on a new mission to save humankind.
Ellen, the ultimate professional, and the Professor, an old drunk with an acid tongue, don’t exactly make for the perfect travel companions. But the pair learn just how important their newfound relationship is when the road trip turns into a car chase.
As they flee from the Guardian - a bounty hunter resolute that the Professor sticks to his original assignment, Ellen discovers that the technology assumed to make her civilisation superior, is also the source of a predetermined path of destruction: and the Professor is the instigator.
To save humanity, Ellen will go beyond fate, beyond destiny, and beyond existence.
