Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

What started as a home movie became a committed project when Josh and Devorah found themselves unable to conceive. An endearing if ironic journey gets serious when life-threatening complications emerge. Their relationship is tested to the brink as they confront birth, death, love and loss all at once. A creative documentary about becoming a parent... and how to reconceive yourself.
Fiction director Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife as they undergo the ordeal of becoming parents in the era of man-children and assisted reproduction. Faced with fatherhood, Josh spirals comically into an envious career funk. But life-threatening complications emerge - the couple are tested to the brink, confronting shattering losses.
A portrait of our generation going through a revolution in reproduction - forced to find new ways to think about ourselves as creative beings. With contributions from writers, filmmakers and thinkers including Slavoj Zizek, John Berger, Darian Leader, Zadie Smith and Sophie Fiennes.
Universal yet still taboo, a film for everyone who has children, wants them, or still feels like a child themselves.

Synopsis

When your memory fades, your grip on reality becomes fragile and the sense of self slowly slips away. In a synagogue hall in North West London, a group of elderly people gather to find release. Using music and song they try to reconnect with themselves. Through the poetic use of poignant personal photographs and carefully assembled voiced-over memories, this film takes us into the emotional heart of these people, coping with the onset of Dementia.

Synopsis

In 1943 a convoy of 120 left Treblinka and moved to the Northeastern part of Italy. They had completed Aktion Reinhardt and were ready to engage in anti-partisan combat in Trieste and Istria. Buried in silence, this is the story of an unknown concentration camp of the Axis.

Synopsis

In 1943 a convoy of 120 left Treblinka and moved to the Northeastern part of Italy. They had completed Aktion Reinhardt and were ready to engage in anti-partisan combat in Trieste and Istria. Buried under the overwhelming evidence of the Holocaust, this is the story of a very little known concentration camp specialised in the killing of freedom fighters.

Synopsis

Based on the 1940 South African trial of a traditional herbalist accused of 'untraditional behaviour, the film explores the ideological and commercial confrontation between two different yet intertwining medicinal traditions and their uses of plants, with slippages across gender and race.

Synopsis

On the 23rd of June 2016 Britain voted to leave the European Union. This film is a re-working of material from a BBC television debate transmitted a few weeks earlier.

Synopsis

George Best, Northern Ireland’s legendary star remains one of the most naturally gifted footballers there has ever been. Famously called the ‘best player in the world’ by Pelé, George Best galvanised Manchester United’s five-year recovery from the tragedy of the Munich air crash. His skill and exuberance inspired them to win league titles and the European Cup, even though he was little more than a teenager.
Tragically, his career in the upper echelons of sport was over before he turned 29, the result of his bruising battle with alcoholism and the crushing pressure of modern fame. (After all, this was Britain in the frenzy of Beatle-mania and 1960s youth culture, where Best was dubbed ‘El Beatle’ by the world’s media.) (LFF brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Journey Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

How much of our mother can we really know? This animated documentary explores three men’s recollections.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Journey Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

Inspired by true events, the story of the first American women who tested for space travel. Their psychological and physical endurance broke records. They were pioneers and adventurers who battled the inequalities of their time, whose exploits remained a state secret for some time.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Journey Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

A meditative, immersive tribute to the astonishing work and achievements of naturalist, inventor and pioneering filmmaker F. Percy Smith. Smith worked in the early years of the 20th century, developing various cinematographic and micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action. Working in a number of public roles, including the Royal Navy and British Instructional Films, Smith was prolific and driven, often directing several films simultaneously, apparently on a mission to explore and capture nature's hidden terrains.
This film is an interpretative edit that combines Smith's original footage with a new contemporary score by tindersticks to create a hypnotic, alien yet familiar dreamscape that connects us to the sense of wonder Smith must have felt as he peered through his own lenses and seen these micro-worlds for the first time. (LFF brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Sonic Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

Gertrude Bell was a pioneering English writer, archaeologist, diplomat and spy whose travels through the Arabian desert gave her local knowledge unparalleled by her British peers. Recruited by British Military Intelligence after World War I, she played a significant – often unrecognised – role in British imperial policy-making in the Middle East, notably Iraq. Openly critical of colonial practices, Bell’s insights are a singular, prescient prism through which to understand both the Middle East and the all-male inner sanctum of British colonial power. Directors Oelbaum and Krayenbühl weave together a rich tapestry of fascinating archive alongside Bell’s writings, letters to her parents, and testimony from peers including TE Lawrence and Vita Sackville-West. Though writing a century ago, the acute contemporary relevance of Bell’s words is astonishing – at times even chilling. (LFF brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Journey Strand

Synopsis

New Year’s Eve in a Lesbos port. A filmmaker meets Noor, a young Syrian woman. They make a short film together with a phone.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Debate Strand - World premiere