Under the Cranes
Synopsis
"If you let it, a street will grow" says a voice in this film-poem which offers a lyrical, painterly defence of the everyday and a celebration of multiculturalism, even as it poses questions about the process of regeneration.
Shot on location in the London Borough of Hackney, the film interweaves rarely seen archive, super 16mm and super 8mm photography. Slow, still shots of streets, parks, cemeteries and markets are juxtaposed with the East London paintings of Leon Kossoff, Jock McFadyen and James MacKinnon.
With a script based on poet, Michael Rosen's play for voices, a heightened soundscape mixes documentary with poetry, music, song and location recordings. As we slip between past and present, real and imagined, famous and unknown "the world comes to Hackney": From Shakespeare in Shoreditch, to a Jamaican builder, from an 18th Century feminist abolitionist to a Turkish barber, from Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" to the Jewish 43 Group taking on Oswald Mosley in Dalston, the audience is invited to apprehend the city as fragmentary and multi-layered, "past in the present, present in the past."
Details
- Year
- 2011
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 55 mins 55 secs
- Format
- Super 16mm, 16mm archive, Super 8mm
- Director
-
Emma-Louise Williams 1st Feature
- Producer
- Michael Rosen
- Editor
- Hoping Chen
- Screenwriter
- Michael Rosen
- Director of Photography
- Conor Connolly
- Sound
- Linda Brenon
- Composer
- Piano performed by Liam Noble
- Principal cast
- Michael Rosen, Richard Earthy, Hamza Mohsin, Sally Armstrong, Eileen Pollock, Yetunde Oduwole, Nathan Thompson, Janie Booth, Altan R Koraltan, Cosh Omar, Ben Bazell, Cyril Nri, Gabby Wong, Joe Shefer
- Voice Director
- Christopher Preston
- Assistant Director
- Walter Stabb
- Location Sound Recordist
- Ross Adams
- Additional Editing
- Enric Junoy
- Camera Assistant
- Neal Caton
Production Status
Production Company
Emma-Louise Williams
Xylonite19 Wellfield Avenue
London N10 2EA
+ 44 (0)20 8444 8275
Mobile: +44 (0)7403 185 249Page 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.
Ringing the Changes
Director: Felix Dembinski
Year:
A honeymoon turns into a night of terror when the newlyweds learn that ringing church bells herald an annual ritual to raise the dead.
A Visit to Grandpa's
Director: DJ Caruso
Year:
A Visit to Grandpa’s is a whimsical, heart-stirring tale based on Dylan Thomas’s classic short story. When a lonely boy is sent to spend the summer with his wildly eccentric grandfather in the countryside, he expects boredom but finds magic instead. Grandpa is nothing like he imagined: impulsive, outrageous, and full of mysterious stories that blur fact and fantasy. As the days stretch on, mischief turns to meaning, and their unexpected bond becomes a lifeline for them both. With Hopkins set to deliver a career-defining performance, this is a funny and deeply moving journey through memory, imagination and the strange magic of family.
