Project Detail

One Day at a Time

Synopsis

We follow Sam Batley a poet/photographer who admitted himself into an abstinence based recovery centre in Liverpool, where he wrote a poem about his young-adulthood of addiction. With the help of the other former addicts at the centre he turns this poem into a short film; throughout the making of this film and the practices of the centre we explore the importance of self-expression, connection and the power of art to heal.
We move through each resident at the house and learn how being introduced to art, sport & culture has given them a sense of purpose and connection. Wayne, at 60's taken up acting after appearing in the film. Darren, in and out of prison, now manages a mental health football team. Zoe runs a fitness and meditation centre for women.
In an impassioned speech at the premiere of the short film we learn what recovery means to Sam, “It brings hope, life and joy, not just for me but for my family too’. We then delve into the spoken-word experimental short film about Sam’s addiction, this brings clarity to the importance of the centre and the connection it brings to its residents, one day at a time.

Details

Year
2022
Type of project
Features
Running time
63 min
Format
Digital, 16mm, VHS
Director
Paul Chambers 1st Feature
Producer
Sam Batley, Paul Chambers
Editor
Paul Chambers
Director of Photography
Owen Cant
Sound
Martyn Ellis, Marco Battimelli
Composer
Novymir, Skinny Pelembe, werkha, Gidge, Toronto Blessings
Principal cast
Sam Batley, PJ Smith, Jacqui Fisher, Wayne Goldie, Darren Bailey, Zoe Hesketh, Craig Taylor, Benedict Drinan, Bradley Murphey, Thomas Wynn, Jamie Maxfield

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Paul Chambers Films Ltd

71-75 Shelton Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 9JQ

Sales 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.

A man stood on a chair wipes water vapour with his hand off the glass cover of a memorial board in a stone brick chapel. Adlais

Director: Alex Darby, George Leith, Sophie Mei Birkin

Year: 2026

Adlais (Echo) weaves Welsh language folklore and histories through their shared subjects of poetry and drowning – and asks whether we’re listening to the past as it surfaces today.

A woman paints on a large canvas in bright colours The End of Times

Director: Luca Anzalone

Year: 2026

Caught between her indigenous Buryat roots—where art is a shamanic window between worlds—and a Western market that treats culture as a commodity, artist Yuma Radne constructs a monumental canvas to confront the psychological distortions of colonization at the edge of an irreversible era. "Either you make art, or you suffer. It’s like a curse." For painter Yuma Radne, the act of creation is not an aesthetic choice, but an ancestral code carried in the blood. Moving from a remote Siberian village to the high-stakes European art world, Yuma finds herself navigating a surreal landscape where sacred cultural identity is rapidly converted into a luxury product. Through intimate studio dialogues and raw philosophical reflections, the film captures the gruelling physical and mental labour behind her graduation masterpiece, The End of Times. Centred around a gargantuan erupting booze (a traditional Buryat dumpling) mutated into an absurd, monumental symbol of a colonised and erased national identity, the film transcends a typical artist portrait. It becomes a vital, cosmic meditation on why humanity continues to create art in the face of systemic collapse—and a powerful testament to an indigenous culture refusing to be reduced to a souvenir.

A lady with white hair sat in a chair talking with a customer surrounded by fabrics Tobias and the Angel

Director: Mark Forbes

Year: 2021

Tobias & The Angel are famous for their shop in West London where all the different aspects of what they do that are combined to make it feel like home. The shop is owned and run by Angel Hughes and has a story to tell about her family beginnings.