'The Ambiguity of David Thomas Broughton' is a musical documentary following the creative process of one of the UK’s most enigmatic musicians and performers. As a musical act, David Thomas Broughton is almost unclassifiable. His live shows are a exhilarating mix of musical experimentation and performance art, underlined with a raw unpredictability. His recorded material is dark but beautiful, marrying traditional folk with a surrealist edge. Off-stage, he’s an introvert with a passion for bird watching. Who is the real David Thomas Broughton? Through a series of interviews with friends, family and collaborators, filmmaker Greg Butler attempts to unravel this ambiguity. His journey takes him to David’s home town of Otley, where we track David’s creative process as he records new material to be played at the End of the Road Festival.
A tour of the Tower of London, which has served as a royal castle, prison, place of execution and torture, armory and mint during its almost 1000 years of existence.
70 is definitely the new 20 in this heart-warming 1960s documentary portrait of the Darby and Joan Club for elderly Cockneys.
Dance for All
Impressionistic glimpses of London life from early morning to rush hour.
Vertical Expectations is a documentary that explores the nexus between architecture, development and society through an ethnographic analysis of the current building of the Shard.
An account of the short life of genius musician Jimi Hendrix (1942-70), probably the most talented and influential guitarist of the twentieth century: his humble beginnings in Seattle, his time in New York, his rise to fame in swinging London… Live fast, love hard, die young.
The original Living Photograph on YouTube. Starring Chris, a teacup, a red lamp and a tasteful, yet mildly uninspired window treatment.
Saar is an HIV positive gay man living in London, where he found refuge from the religious kibbutz where he grew up in Israel. Ever since he was diagnosed with HIV, Saar has craved his family's love, while they struggle with fears and prejudices.
A colorful travelogue of London's most historic buildings and the residual damage still left from WWII.
This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious leaves across the globe.
Comprising new and archival footage, this film observes rituals performed by the South Asian, African, and Caribbean diaspora in Britain, demonstrating an appreciation of land, community values, and the universe we share with other species and planets.
Produced by the Fox Movietone News arm of Fox Film Corporation and based on the book by Lawrence Stallings, this expanded newsreel, using stock-and-archive footage, tells the story of World War I from inception to conclusion. Alternating with scenes of trench warfare and intimate glimpses of European royalty at home, and scenes of conflict at sea combined with sequences of films from the secret archives of many of the involved nations.
On the 22nd of May 2021, around 100 Animal Rebels shut-down all four McDonald's distribution centers across the UK. Shutting down their factories for a total of 96 hours and disrupting over 1300 of McDonald's restaurants across the country.
Based on Geoffrey Fletcher’s book, this captivating documentary exposes the real London of the swinging sixties. Turning its back on familiar sights, the film explores the hidden details of a crumbling metropolis. With James Mason as our Guide, we are led on an tour of the weird and wonderful pockets of London from abandoned music-halls to egg breaking factories.
A fragmented collection of independent closed cinemas, in London during lockdown, captured on Super 8mm film.
The Divide tells the story of 7 individuals striving for a better life in modern day US and UK - where the top 0.1% owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%. By plotting these tales together, we uncover how virtually every aspect of our lives is controlled by one factor: the size of the gap between rich and poor.The film is inspired by "The Spirit Level" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
A documentary on the post-war redevelopment in the City of London — focusing on the attempt to build an ambitious network of elevated walkways through the city. Featuring interviews with professor of town planning Michael Hebbert (UCL), architecture critic Jonathan Glancey, city planning officer Peter Wynne Rees and writer Nicholas Rudd-Jones (Pathways), the film explores why the 'Pedway' scheme was unsuccessful and captures the abandoned remains that, unknown to the public, still haunt the square mile.
Edward Barton-Wright was one of the first Europeans to study Ju-Jitsu in Japan. Back in London, he founded a club where he taught the upscale society in self-defense. He combined the most effective martial arts of his time: Canne Vigny, Boxing, Savate and Ju-Jitsu. Barton-Wright became such an early pioneer of mixed martial arts (MMA). He called his self-defense art Bartitsu . The stick fighting instructor at the Bartitsu Club was Pierre Vigny, who optimized the techniques of classic French stick fighting for self-defense.
At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance. How did this come about, and what impact does it have on the world today? This is what the Spider's Web sets out to investigate.