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.
Choked
Director: Travis Alabanza
Year: 2026
Shakona doesn't always want to be treated so nicely, sometimes she wants to feel like the world does: chaotic. Yet she can't get her devoted and loving boyfriend Eddie to meet her needs, so she goes to where all good decisions are made, a hookup app. Just as it seems like Shakona is finally letting go, she has the chance to take power into her own hands...
The Solway
Director: Eamon Bourke
Year: 2026
Filmmaker Eamon Bourke lost his mother, Sue, when he was three and has no memory of her. When his father decides to sell the remote Lake District home where she died, Eamon returns with his camera to document the house and its clearing. Among Sue’s belongings - diaries, poems, photographs and tapes - he discovers a box of damaged cassette recordings. After painstakingly repairing them, he uncovers something extraordinary: his mother’s voice. Through these intimate audio diaries, Sue speaks candidly about motherhood, sings to her children, and captures fleeting family moments Eamon never knew. One final tape records her describing the onset of hepatitis, days before she fell into a coma and died in 1983. Another, more haunting still, features three-year-old Eamon calling out to his unconscious mother in hospital, in a desperate attempt to bring her back. As Eamon pieces together this archive, he confronts the enduring impact of early loss, speaking with his father and sisters while retracing the emotional landscape of his childhood. Set against the vast beauty of the Lake District, a deeply personal exploration of grief, memory and love - an attempt to recover what was lost, and to finally say goodbye.
Madrugada
Director: Sebastián Lojo
Year: 2026
Koki is a vampire at night and gardener during the day. His wife knows, but they keep it a secret from their seven year old son, who starts showing signs that he's turning like his father. Official Selection Quinzaine des Cinéastes / Directors' Fortnight Cannes 2026