FrightFest: Beneath the Dark Heart of Cinema

Director: Chris Collier

Year: 2023

Title (Year) Director. Place is a documentary in the celebratory style of Free Cinema, displaying an intimate portrait of Alan Goble, an obsessed octogenarian with many interests but one passion: to detail, every film ever made anywhere in the world from the earliest days of cinema to the present. Now a widower, he reflects on his effortful accomplishment, which has been awarded a Guinness Record as the world's largest film-related database. We also observe him in a moment of relaxation, watching over his garden, rewilded more than forty years ago, where, every evening, generations of badgers snuffle for food, and fox cubs play in the long grass. And, through his own movies, we can observe his progress, from a Saturday morning cinema-going childhood through work and marriage to his solitary existence in a book-lined home, where he continues to find solace in his archival activities. It offers the story of his and our time through a close-up view of an unusual, extraordinary, and individual life.

Director: Hannah Berryman

Year: 2024

A landmark feature documentary about astronaut Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command the Space Shuttle.<br /> 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.<br /> 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? <br /> 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. <br /> Official Selection DOC NYC 2024 - World premiere<br /> Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025 - European premiere

Director: Tristan M Copeland

Year: 2025

WHAT ABOUT GARY is a raw and emotive documentary that delves into the tragic consequences of misinformation, exploring how conspiracy theories led to the death of Gary Matthews from Covid-19. The film intimately portrays the profound grief of Gary's family and friends as they grapple with this senseless loss.<br /> Director Tristan Copeland, Gary's cousin, questions the purveyors of these falsehoods, driven by a need to understand why they ensnared Gary. Through vérité footage, archival materials, and Gary's own paintings, the film explores Gary’s descent into a distorted reality, seeking the root causes of his susceptibility to misinformation.<br /> Shot during the pandemic in Shrewsbury, England, WHAT ABOUT GARY captures the isolation that made many, including Gary, vulnerable to manipulation. With kinetic editing, evocative camera work, and a poignant score, the film examines how society failed to protect its citizens from misinformation.<br /> A potentially controversial yet vital work that questions how conspiracy theorists wield such influence and whether others can be saved from similar fates. A cautionary tale for a world grappling with truth in the digital age, and a tribute to a life tragically cut short, driven by a need to understand why.