Project Detail

I Was Here

Synopsis

On a journey throughout England locals from towns, villages and cities take part in a casting for a documentary character. As each individual pitches themselves recounting their story through interview and reenactments, the audience questions our perception of an interesting life, the role of the media and our basic, human instinct to leave a trace of ourselves for the sake of posterity.

Details

Year
2017
Type of project
Features
Running time
70 mins
Director
Nathalie Biancheri, Ola Jankowska 1st Feature
Producer
Colin Day, Coco Marie Schneider
Production Note
'I Was Here' was commissioned by CPH:LAB, an affiliate program of CPH:DOX, the third largest documentary film festival in the world. CPH:LAB is a prestigious invite only program which selects directors from different artistic and cultural backgrounds and gives them the means to embark on a creative collaboration and make a film together. Our concept was simple: we decided to launch a series of castings for a documentary character and make a film solely composed of those auditions. We set out on this journey with one main question: What makes you a good documentary character? We travelled across the country and advertised our casting via local radio, fliers and posters. We spent two hours with every person who turned up, listening to them pitching their lives, as well as sharing their deepest hopes, fears, and memories.

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

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.

Children playing in Gaza. Joy of Joys

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Year: 2026

JOY OF JOYS is a short documentary about the recording sessions for War Child Records' HELP(2) at Abbey Road Studios, directed by Jonathan Glazer and devised by Mica Levi and Glazer. Children in London film themselves and the musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn, Cameron Winter, Fontaines DC and Pulp. While children in Gaza Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen film themselves and their surroundings. The documentary interweaves these layers across continents and backgrounds to show a universal innocence and the joy of childhood itself. Glazer and Levi describe the film as being “by children, for children”. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Smiling man facing camera with a group of people in nun costumes and Outrage placards behind Queer Edward II

Director: Theo Rollason

Year: 2026

Spring 1991: queer life is under renewed attack in Britain, and filmmaker Derek Jarman is adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Drawing on extraordinary never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, QUEER EDWARD 11 is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Young man with dark hair and black jacket stands with his eyes closed in a field of common reed. Between Us and the World

Director: Wallace Minchong Li

Year: 2026

European archival footage from the 1950s documents the life of indigenous, nomadic Sahrawi children and youth in Western Sahara / Morocco. Seventy years later, local young people from Laayoune (El Aaiún) revisit locations that may have appeared in the footage. From ocean to desert to oasis, under trembling starlight, they share their thoughts on life, dreams, and utopia as they search for an uncertain upstream. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026