Project Detail

Dear Araucaria

Synopsis

Better known by his pseudonym Araucaria, John Graham set The Guardian crossword for 55 years. In December 2012, crossword number 25,842 appeared in the paper with a series of clues revealing a personal message to his followers.
'Dear Araucaria' unpicks the crossword to journey into John’s world of clue-making.

Details

Year
2015
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
9 mins 14 secs
Format
Digital HD
Director
Matt Houghton
Producer
Francesca Boyce, Alistair Payne-James, Nicole Jackson
Executive Producer
Graham Hodge, Julia Nottingham, Merope Mills
Editor
Matt Houghton
Screenwriter
Matt Houghton
Director of Photography
John Craine
Production Designer
Damien Creagh
Sound
Christopher Barnett
Composer
Noah Wood
Principal cast
Philip Ridout, Alexander Slater, Eveline Chapman

Production Status

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.

See also

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

Landline Landline

Director: Matt Houghton

Year: 2018

A short documentary about the only helpline in the UK for gay farmers. Through a series of recorded telephone conversations and reconstructive visuals, the film uses the helpline as a lens through which to view the experiences of LGBTQ people in the British farming community. In a world that prizes traditional masculinity and in which ideas of ancestry are fundamental, being gay can be isolating. Candid, intimate and shocking, the film offers a snapshot of a group of people bound together by circumstance, but so often disconnected from each other. Official Selection CPH:DOX 2018 - International premiere

Galicia! Galicia!

Director: Anna Maguire, Kyle Greenberg

Year: 2026

What if you went on a holiday and the apocalypse happened? GALICIA! is a found-footage, hybrid-documentary following a couple through home video footage as they visit their friends at a winery in rural Spain and inadvertently capture the end of days. We live in a time where the sense of our impending mutually assured destruction is more real than it’s ever been. GALICIA! Takes the form of a holiday video - a document of a couple before - and after the great cataclysm. The film starts as something that feels unedited - an accidental video diary of an ordinary couple that feels somewhat ghostly as much as it is also pedestrian. As the film evolves and degrades, we are led to question the fragility of humanity, as well as its power to endure.

Holyhead Santa: A True Story Holyhead Santa: A True Story

Director: Pamela Ryder

Year: 2026

A kind hearted, working class volunteer dons the Santa suit each year, quietly transforming his community through simple acts of generosity, testing whether his belief in giving can inspire others to carry the magic forward.