Project Detail

Dead When I Got Here

Synopsis

This film is about a man finding purpose for his life in the most unlikely place after years of self-destruction. Infested with gangrene, unable to walk, Josué was cast out of the traumatised streets of Juárez, México into the desert and dumped in a mental asylum run by its own patients. Assisted by people employing empathy as the only means of survival, Josué transcended near death - discovering compassion in his darkest hours. Six years later, Josué manages the asylum. He dreams of his estranged daughter in California - last seen 22 years ago. Trawling the Internet, Vanessa encounters her father in the trailer for this film. The reunion offers Josué possibility to repair his shattered past and start life afresh.

Visit Film Website

Details

Year: 2015
Type of film: Features
Running time: 72 min
Director: Mark Aitken
Producer: Mark Aitken
Executive Producer: Chuck Bowden
Editor: Sibila Estruch
Screenwriter: Mark Aitken
Director of Photography: Mark Aitken
Composer: Mark Pilkington
Principal cast: Josué Rosales

Genre

Drama

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

UK, Mexico, US coproduction

Tacit Films (UK)

mark@deadwhenigothere.org

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

A landmark feature documentary about astronaut Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command the Space Shuttle. Eileen’s incredible journey starts with her smalltown beginnings, sees her smash through many glass ceilings, and culminates in four dramatic space shuttle missions, the last being possibly the most dangerous and most important of them all. At its heart the film is the moving human drama of one family, where a mother’s extraordinary career takes us straight to the big philosophical question of what is the level of acceptable risk in human endeavour? This film celebrates Commander Collins’ trailblazing NASA career which opened the way for women to become spacecraft pilots and commanders, and proved a perfect riposte to a previous generation of male astronauts who thought there was no place for women to lead the way in space. Official Selection DOC NYC 2024 - World premiere Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025 - European premiere

Woman Director

All Rivers Spill Their Secrets To The Sea

Director: Jeanie Finlay

Year: 2026

Fisherman Stan Rennie and his family have always fished the waters of North East England for centuries. This line to history stretched uninterrupted, until a devastating tidemark of poisoned crabs appeared one Autumn morning like a biblical plague, heralding an unprecedented poisoning of the river and the sea Unless Stan - and others like him - can find answers, he may be the last of his kind. Can an unlikely alliance between a raggle-taggle group of salty fishers, elderly seal conservationist Sue and her equally elderly dog Mandy, with marine biologists be the key to survival? A richly layered story about the value of home and what happens when it is undermined by corruption, betrayal, and environmental collapse. Told with wit, pathos and underdog tenacity by the coastal community whose own Brexit votes may have been the catalyst for disaster.

Climate / Environment Human Rights Science Woman Director

Stepney Western

Director: Harry Lawson

Year: 2025

STEPNEY WESTERN is an experimental documentary made in collaboration with young inner city horse riders from Stepney Bank Stables in Byker, Newcastle. It is loosely centred on their Alternative Provision programme — a unique alternative for teenagers who struggle in mainstream education settings. Recasting Byker as the Wild West, this project sits at the porous boundary between fact and fiction, combining re-contextualised iPhone clips shot by the riders and archival material with Lawson's own footage.

Experimental Western