Violet City

Director: John Maxwell

Year: 2020

LIME STREET combines archive footage, documentary, animation and the performance film of COSTA Book Award nominated Jeff Young's play BRIGHT PHOENIX starring Cathy Tyson (Mona Lisa). It explores how changing, sanitising and eradicating the urban landscape distinct to a city, notably the now demolished Futurist Cinema in Liverpool that is featured in BRIGHT PHOENIX, leads to a degradation of culture and a caustic erosion with the past. How do places recall culture and society in a unique way? How do they offer a physical, organic link to new generations? How are they live stages for culture to grow? This is a city that can’t be found in a guidebook, a culture that lives in the walls of places like the Futurist Cinema. When it is torn down, the future vanishes. LIME STREET blends an elegiac play with an investigative documentary, ergo the recent arrest of city Mayor Joe Anderson and current investigation into bribery charges surrounding property development. In an age where city planning and regeneration are so relevant to the present and future of cities, this project explores how retaining and restoring places means so much more than nostalgia.

Director: Ben O'Connor

Year: 2026

Robbie exists on the margins of society. He lives alone on a narrow boat in rural England with little means. He has found solace in isolation and a humble life. Unexpectedly he is contacted with the unwanted news of his estranged father’s death. This drags up emotions from the past that quickly become too much to bear… And so, the story begins… A journey back into his past. A journey on a motorcycle to find his mother. He drives, alone, through desolate landscapes, barren and mountainous, into the depths of his mind. A dream world where Robbie is forced to confront his past. Two stories emerge; memories from his childhood recurrently appear, fracturing the present where ex-lovers who have shaped his life confront him in surreal encounters. With time the two stories collide, past and present become one. The road leads in one direction, back to his childhood home and ultimately, his first and now final love; his mother. For where he began, he will now end and know himself for the first time.

Director: Simon Brooke

Year: 2025

Boyfriends Connor, Silas, and Connor’s dad Rob arrive home. Connor and Silas show affection. Rob drops his yellow work bucket in the kitchen. Little brother Max sits up for dinner while mum, Jan, plans for his sixth birthday. They watch the evening news announcing a scientific discovery; if a boy sees yellow while hearing a woman sing on his sixth birthday, he will grow up gay. The notion of this quotidian trigger creates a tense silence. Connor, anxious, realises his parents can choose whether Max grows up gay. The next day, Max chooses colours for his party, ignoring yellow. Connor sees the yellow bucket in the kitchen has been replaced with a blue one. That night, Connor wakes Max to ask if anyone told him what colours to pick. Max insists he chose his favourites. Before the party, Jan fears she is losing her voice. Rob takes Connor to the pub and reassures him the yellow bucket broke, and that he and Jan are proud Connor is gay. At the party, Connor withdraws to his room. Jan follows and finds he has hidden every yellow object in the house. Upset, they gently return to the celebration leaving the objects.