British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

Brand: A Second Coming

Synopsis

Following comedian/author/activist Russell Brand as he dives headlong into drugs, sex and fame in an attempt to find happiness, only to realize we have all been nurtured on bad ideas and empty celebrity idols. Brand leaves Los Angeles to embark on a stand-up comedy tour about his own true icons - Gandhi, Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ - and transforms from addict and Hollywood star into an unexpected political disruptor and new found hero to the undeserved.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Gala Screening

Details

Year
2015
Type of project
Features
Running time
104 mins
Director
Ondi Timoner
Producer
Ondi Timoner
Editor
Tim Rush, David Timoner, Ondi Timoner, Clay Zimmerman
Screenwriter
Ondi Timoner
Director of Photography
Svetlana Cvetko, Paul Marchand, Mark Schwartzbard
Composer
Simon Sello
Principal cast
Russell Brand, Ron Brand, Barbara Brand, Noel Gallagher, David Lynch, Stephen Merchant

Genre

Woman Director

Categories

Documentary

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

UK, US coproduction

Mayfair Film Partnership (UK), Interloper Films (US)

Mayfair Film Partnership

3-5 College Street
Burnham On Sea
Somerset
TA8 1AR

Sales Company

Myriad Pictures (US)

3015 Main St., # 400
Santa Monica
CA 90405
USA

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Children playing in Gaza. Joy of Joys

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Year: 2026

JOY OF JOYS is a short documentary about the recording sessions for War Child Records' HELP(2) at Abbey Road Studios, directed by Jonathan Glazer and devised by Mica Levi and Glazer. Children in London film themselves and the musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn, Cameron Winter, Fontaines DC and Pulp. While children in Gaza Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen film themselves and their surroundings. The documentary interweaves these layers across continents and backgrounds to show a universal innocence and the joy of childhood itself. Glazer and Levi describe the film as being “by children, for children”. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Music War
Smiling man facing camera with a group of people in nun costumes and Outrage placards behind Queer Edward II

Director: Theo Rollason

Year: 2026

Spring 1991: queer life is under renewed attack in Britain, and filmmaker Derek Jarman is adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Drawing on extraordinary never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, QUEER EDWARD 11 is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Art / Artists Biography LGBTQIA+
Young man with dark hair and black jacket stands with his eyes closed in a field of common reed. Between Us and the World

Director: Wallace Minchong Li

Year: 2026

European archival footage from the 1950s documents the life of indigenous, nomadic Sahrawi children and youth in Western Sahara / Morocco. Seventy years later, local young people from Laayoune (El Aaiún) revisit locations that may have appeared in the footage. From ocean to desert to oasis, under trembling starlight, they share their thoughts on life, dreams, and utopia as they search for an uncertain upstream. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Climate / Environment Experimental Human Rights