Faith in the City

Director: Martin Orton, Greg Villalobos

Year: 2008

A sensitive and detailed dialogue between the residents of an East London housing estate on the verge of significant and disruptive changes to their environment. The Devons charts the aspirations, frustrations and reality of life on the estate in order to understand and improve the inevitable regeneration process.

Director: Martin Orton, Greg Villalobos

Year: 2007

As seen through the eyes of a local youth from an East London Estate, this challenging documentary-animation uniquely deals with the problem of anti-social behaviour in Britain’s inner cities to successfully tackle social misrepresentation of the community, young and old. Commissioned by Tower Hamlets Crime Reduction Services and The Local Police Team this film used a unique process of workshops and interaction with the local community to resolve long standing issues of misrepresentation and disengagement of young people on the estate. The animation was written by two emerging youth leaders on the estate who realised that the ongoing problems needed to be resolved if they where ever going to stand a chance of living in peacefully alongside the police and older residents.

Director: Emilio Guerrero Alexander

Year: 2026

Founded in 2004 by Damon Albarn and Ian Birrell, the UK music collective Africa Express has spent two decades bringing artists together across borders. In February 2024 it arrived in the Americas for the first time. Over eight days in Las Estacas, Mexico, more than 60 musicians from Africa, Latin America, Europe and the United States came together to rehearse, perform and create an album from scratch. Following Africa Express from Mexico through Europe and back, the film becomes a poetic journey through music, memory and imagination, celebrating the power of collaboration and community as reality slowly blurs with fantasy. With no single protagonist, the collective itself is the main character and music is its language. Africa Express is a portrait of a fleeting community and of what strangers from different worlds can build when they truly listen to each other.