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. 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

Director: David Nicholas Wilkinson

Year: 2025

The controversy surrounding the Parthenon Marbles centres entirely on their initial acquisition and their current location in the British Museum. In 1983, when she became the Minister for Culture of Greece, the esteemed actress and politician Melina Mercouri reignited Greece’s argument that they were illegally removed from the Parthenon temple in Athens by Lord Elgin. The British Museum has consistently affirmed the legality of its acquisitions and that they are better and more securely preserved and appreciated in London. In the past, it has been stated that the sculptures are an essential part of its wider world collection, which enables visitors to understand both the full cultural and historical context of ancient Greece. Greece asserts that the sculptures are integral to its national identity and historical narrative, and that only their reunification with the remaining Parthenon artefacts in Athens can provide the fullest, most complete, and meaningful context for their display. With both sides standing firm on their positions, the debate remains unresolved. THE MARBLES advocates for reunification in what has become the art world’s most pressing issue.