Projects

Synopsis

In 1950s South Africa, apartheid is just beginning. Free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her 'coloured' business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young traditional wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam’s sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever. In a system that divides white from black and women from men, what chance is there for an unexpected love to survive?

Synopsis

This short sharp shock of a film mixes live action with fantastical animation. It explores the deepest darkest most murky of phenomena which the Airline industries of the world would rather we didn't know about. A suburban couple experience the ups and downs of life below the Heathrow flight path.

Synopsis

This is Tomorrow is the latest collaboration between film-maker Paul Kelly and pop band Saint Etienne, and is the result of the year they spent as artists in residence at the Royal Festival Hall. It is a journey into the past and the future of this internationally renowned and much-loved architectural space and its epic refurbishment. The film features interviews with people who have made major contributions to the building and its architecture, including designer Robin Day, original architects Trevor Dannatt and Jim Cadbury-Brown, Southbank Centre's current artistic director Jude Kelly, artist Jeremy Deller and author Alain De Botton as well as builders, manufacturers, local residents and Southbank Centre staff.

Synopsis

Three Towers is set on 9/11 in a remote Italian village and centres on how the far reaching news affects the lives of an old, isolated farmer couple.

Synopsis

Through the Looking Glass is a psychological horror detailing the path of one man’s obsession that culminates in madness, fear and ultimately death. The Artist lives alone in a foreboding old house in the country, a place of solitude, free from distractions. For years he has been happy here, content and prolific, but now he is at odds with his work and is unable to paint. This Painter's block has lead to a desperate man obsessed with the need to paint, leaving The Artist in a state of disarray. All of this changes when he finds a large mysterious package left on his doorstep. The Artist unveils the wrapping to find a strange ornate mirror enveloped within. As events progress strange things begin to manifest. At first these seem trivial. However things soon escalate into increasingly disturbing occurrences. During this time he becomes wracked by horrific and surreal visions that begin to fuel his work. As he experiences each aberration, The Artist enters an almost trance-like state, during which he paints what he sees. Through his addiction to these ardent visions, he becomes more reclusive. Each brush stroke brings him inexorably closer to an unknown fate, a fate that is perhaps foretold in the very visions that fuel his work.

Synopsis

Throwing Paint Tins off the Roof is a poetic documentary about community, architecture and social change demonstrated through the fates of two brother buildings. Through the stories of past inhabitants of the two houses, this documentary awakens the memories of a fading era and displaced community in East London.

Synopsis

Jim is an English lawyer in Tokyo finalising a very important deal with Mr Yakamoto - a Japanese businessman. Unfortunately Jim is not feeling that well. On top of that, Mr Yakamoto has taken an instant dislike to him. The last thing in the world Jim wants to do is to go for a celebratory post-deal drink. Being a good lawyer, however, Jim agrees to go, although there is just one thing he needs to do before they leave.

Synopsis

Amish is celebrating is his 18th birthday with his family, however it's not balloons and cards that he wants this year.

Synopsis

Jack is a young boy dying of leukaemia. All his treatments are failing him. His mother refuses to accept reality. His father cannot bear to see his son suffering. Behind the mother’s back, father and son plot and execute a daring adventure and in doing so challenge every aspect of the boy’s fragile remaining life.

Synopsis

While his girlfriend languishes in a maternity ward, a young man deals with his impending fatherhood by going out on the pull with his mates. But every one night stand has a morning after.

Synopsis

The unique story of how Dr Garri Urban, the film maker's father, went back after the fall of the Soviet Union to recover the evidence of his imprisonments by, and escapes from, the Soviet secret police, and also to discover how his family died in the Holocaust.

The film comprises video diaries shot over 14 years by Stuart Urban and an interview with Dr Garri Urban who also presents and narrates the story.

We experience sorrow and joy as his 25-year search, to find out if anyone from his family survived the Holocaust, brought about the discovery of his brother in Israel in 1964.

We see Garri find the woman who had been his fiancée and discover that she was imprisoned for eight years because of him.

Less than one in a hundred men who were tortured by the KGB were able to withstand the pressure to make a false confession or work for the organisation.

Even fewer survived and almost none escaped.

Garri Urban is thus a unique survivor, but also a humanitarian and a distinguished doctor whose work brought him awards from Soviet authorities.

After Garri's death in 2004, Stuart probes more and more fascinating mysteries and secrets to the man who survived what so few did. There are even allegations that Garri went on a dangerous mission for the KGB in Nazi Germany.
 

Synopsis

Karen escapes to Brighton from her unreliable partner taking her daughter, Sally, with her. On the beach she fears for Sally's safety when a mysterious man, John, approaches. Despite her initial pre-conception, John is a warm, friendly man who ignites Karen and Sally's imagination at this transitional moment in their lives.