A Chinese film-maker and an Arsenal-supporting widower converge in a small Essex town in this strange but absorbing take on pastoral England
There’s an eccentric Englishness in this quirky, microbudget feature from screenwriter Adam Ganz and director Marc Isaacs. They have created a kind of docu-fictional guided reality, a weird soap set in the picturesque Essex town of Thaxted, known for its association with the composer Gustav Holst who was entranced by its beauty and established a music festival there with the encouragement of its Christian socialist vicar, Conrad Noel.
Ganz and Isaacs have got some present-day Thaxted inhabitants to play heightened or fictionally modified versions of themselves, in a story interspersed with black-and-white clips from Ripe Earth, the Boulting brothers’ early short film from 1938, also set in Thaxted. Lori (Yingge Lori Yang) is a young Chinese film-maker who has come to Thaxted to record the local traditions, especially the morris dancing,...
There’s an eccentric Englishness in this quirky, microbudget feature from screenwriter Adam Ganz and director Marc Isaacs. They have created a kind of docu-fictional guided reality, a weird soap set in the picturesque Essex town of Thaxted, known for its association with the composer Gustav Holst who was entranced by its beauty and established a music festival there with the encouragement of its Christian socialist vicar, Conrad Noel.
Ganz and Isaacs have got some present-day Thaxted inhabitants to play heightened or fictionally modified versions of themselves, in a story interspersed with black-and-white clips from Ripe Earth, the Boulting brothers’ early short film from 1938, also set in Thaxted. Lori (Yingge Lori Yang) is a young Chinese film-maker who has come to Thaxted to record the local traditions, especially the morris dancing,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Portuguese doc fesitival has a reputation for showcasing formally bold films with attitude.
As it celebrates its 21st edition this year, Doclisboa is one of the most radical and innovative of the autumn documentary festivals. It opens today (October 19), taking place in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon until October 29.
Festival director Miguel Ribeiro prides himself on programming films with attitude and this year’s international competition includes shorts screening in the same section as features. Six are world premieres.
Whether they are dealing with politics, art or music, the titles screening in Lisbon tend to be opinionated and formally...
As it celebrates its 21st edition this year, Doclisboa is one of the most radical and innovative of the autumn documentary festivals. It opens today (October 19), taking place in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon until October 29.
Festival director Miguel Ribeiro prides himself on programming films with attitude and this year’s international competition includes shorts screening in the same section as features. Six are world premieres.
Whether they are dealing with politics, art or music, the titles screening in Lisbon tend to be opinionated and formally...
- 10/19/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
London-based documentarian Marc Isaacs films the interactions of his builder, cleaner and neighbours in a playful work that is just a little too at home with manipulation
“I’m not bloody interested in serial killers, Rachel; I’m interested in ordinary human beings,” sighs veteran documentary-maker Marc Isaacs on a Skype call to his producer, who tells him programmers are only interested in sensationalist themes nowadays. Isaacs sticks to his guns. As the title implies, this inventive but flawed effort barely leaves his London terrace home. What’s less obvious, at least initially, is whether it is documentary or fiction. The eventual answer is a bit of both. Having chronicled so many aspects of Britishness in his documentary career, Isaacs contrives a sort of microcosmic state of our multicultural nation here: a gentle clash of cultural attitudes and boundaries.
Related: Documentary-maker Marc Isaacs: ‘I like to provoke, but not to be seen’
Continue reading.
“I’m not bloody interested in serial killers, Rachel; I’m interested in ordinary human beings,” sighs veteran documentary-maker Marc Isaacs on a Skype call to his producer, who tells him programmers are only interested in sensationalist themes nowadays. Isaacs sticks to his guns. As the title implies, this inventive but flawed effort barely leaves his London terrace home. What’s less obvious, at least initially, is whether it is documentary or fiction. The eventual answer is a bit of both. Having chronicled so many aspects of Britishness in his documentary career, Isaacs contrives a sort of microcosmic state of our multicultural nation here: a gentle clash of cultural attitudes and boundaries.
Related: Documentary-maker Marc Isaacs: ‘I like to provoke, but not to be seen’
Continue reading.
- 6/23/2021
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
In an early sequence in The Filmmaker’s House, director Marc Isaacs chats to his producer on Skype about his dubious funding prospects. Told that backers prefer projects they can “pitch upward” such as documentaries on serial killers, Marc responds in a way you might expect from a director more interested in a more common form of lived experience, protesting that “they’re obsessed with darkness… (but) the ordinary life of human beings can be interesting as well.”
So it proves here. In an overlap of documentary convention and semi-scripted faux-realism that offers a playful, frivolous edge to proceedings, even if the aim of its hybrid make-up isn’t always obvious, we have a defiant rejoinder to narrative and crime-led docs, Isaacs’ instead using the idea of hospitality as a loose node to invite a cast of characters into his north-east London home.
How much of his assembled quartet are...
So it proves here. In an overlap of documentary convention and semi-scripted faux-realism that offers a playful, frivolous edge to proceedings, even if the aim of its hybrid make-up isn’t always obvious, we have a defiant rejoinder to narrative and crime-led docs, Isaacs’ instead using the idea of hospitality as a loose node to invite a cast of characters into his north-east London home.
How much of his assembled quartet are...
- 6/19/2021
- by Sunil Chauhan
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
In one of the biggest deals on titles at this year’s Visions du Réel, Switzerland’s premier documentary festival, Radio Télévision Suisse (Rts), the public broadcasting organization for the French-speaking part of the country, has acquired eleven titles from Visions du Réel’s 2021 selection.
The deal is part of a longstanding partnership between the Swiss doc festival and Rts, which selects around a dozen VdR titles every year.
Some are co-productions under the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s pact with the audiovisual industry to increase subsidies for independent Swiss production, including “Radiograph of a Family” by Iranian director Firouzeh Khosrovani.
An IDFA best feature winner, it tells the story of Tayi, who, on her wedding day, marries the photo of Hossein. Joining him in Switzerland, the distance that separates them persists from one country to the other, deepening over the years, and invades the smallest corners of their home.
“The...
The deal is part of a longstanding partnership between the Swiss doc festival and Rts, which selects around a dozen VdR titles every year.
Some are co-productions under the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s pact with the audiovisual industry to increase subsidies for independent Swiss production, including “Radiograph of a Family” by Iranian director Firouzeh Khosrovani.
An IDFA best feature winner, it tells the story of Tayi, who, on her wedding day, marries the photo of Hossein. Joining him in Switzerland, the distance that separates them persists from one country to the other, deepening over the years, and invades the smallest corners of their home.
“The...
- 6/14/2021
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
He counts Louis Theroux as a fan but struggles to find funding for his off-beat drama-doc hybrids. He explains why he uses non-actors to play themselves – and why he filmed his cleaner finding a cat with a defrosted pigeon in its mouth
While making his first documentary 20 years ago, Marc Isaacs spent two months in the lift of a London tower block, filming the residents coming and going, and asking whimsical questions (“What did you dream about last night?”). That short film, Lift, also featured a fly, which he bought from a pet shop; the insect expired in the final shot. Isaacs hadn’t intended that to symbolise the death of the fly-on-the-wall genre – “It only occurred to me afterwards” – but it fits his philosophy, which spurns any notions of unmediated reality. For two decades, he has prodded, coaxed and intervened, all from behind the camera. “I like to provoke,...
While making his first documentary 20 years ago, Marc Isaacs spent two months in the lift of a London tower block, filming the residents coming and going, and asking whimsical questions (“What did you dream about last night?”). That short film, Lift, also featured a fly, which he bought from a pet shop; the insect expired in the final shot. Isaacs hadn’t intended that to symbolise the death of the fly-on-the-wall genre – “It only occurred to me afterwards” – but it fits his philosophy, which spurns any notions of unmediated reality. For two decades, he has prodded, coaxed and intervened, all from behind the camera. “I like to provoke,...
- 6/10/2021
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
Sheffield Doc/Fest, the U.K.’s leading documentary festival, has unveiled its 2020 selection, with a line-up of 115 films, including 31 world premieres.
Due to coronavirus, this year’s festival is largely taking place online. The June event is also extending its activities throughout the rest of the year both in Sheffield and virtually.
The festival is launching a VOD platform, Sheffield Doc/Fest Selects, on June 10 with pay-per-view and subscription options for U.K.-based public audiences including Q&As with filmmakers.
The Doc/Player, a film industry-oriented video library, is also being made available to festival passholders globally from today to August 31.
The festival is also organising weekend screenings in Sheffield cinemas in October – November.
In addition, Doc/Fest has partnered with BFI Player, Doc Alliance Films, The Guardian, and Mubi which will host its curated programmes at various points between July and November.
As announced previously, Sheffield Doc...
Due to coronavirus, this year’s festival is largely taking place online. The June event is also extending its activities throughout the rest of the year both in Sheffield and virtually.
The festival is launching a VOD platform, Sheffield Doc/Fest Selects, on June 10 with pay-per-view and subscription options for U.K.-based public audiences including Q&As with filmmakers.
The Doc/Player, a film industry-oriented video library, is also being made available to festival passholders globally from today to August 31.
The festival is also organising weekend screenings in Sheffield cinemas in October – November.
In addition, Doc/Fest has partnered with BFI Player, Doc Alliance Films, The Guardian, and Mubi which will host its curated programmes at various points between July and November.
As announced previously, Sheffield Doc...
- 6/8/2020
- by Tim Dams
- Variety Film + TV
Cloud Atlas | To The Wonder | Lore | Gangs Of Wasseypur Part 1 | Song For Marion | Mama | Before Dawn | Crawl | Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World | Fire In The Blood | The Road: A Story Of Life And Death | We Are Northern Lights | Breath Of The Gods
Cloud Atlas (15)
(Andy & Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, 2012, Ger/Us/Hk/Sin) Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent. 172 mins
You've got to admire the ambition of trying to tell six stories at once, together spanning the 19th to 24th century. There are connections and parallels, of course, but also wild variations in tone and effectiveness. The experience is a little like channel surfing between Tom Hanks movies, but it's greater than the sum of its parts.
To The Wonder (12A)
(Terrence Malick, 2012, Us) Olga Kurylenko, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams. 113 mins
Those entranced (or put off) by The Tree Of Life will get more of the same from...
Cloud Atlas (15)
(Andy & Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, 2012, Ger/Us/Hk/Sin) Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent. 172 mins
You've got to admire the ambition of trying to tell six stories at once, together spanning the 19th to 24th century. There are connections and parallels, of course, but also wild variations in tone and effectiveness. The experience is a little like channel surfing between Tom Hanks movies, but it's greater than the sum of its parts.
To The Wonder (12A)
(Terrence Malick, 2012, Us) Olga Kurylenko, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams. 113 mins
Those entranced (or put off) by The Tree Of Life will get more of the same from...
- 2/23/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Marc Isaacs stakes a claim as documentary film-making's pre-eminent people person in a subtle film about the immigrants along the A5
The road in Marc Isaacs's highly engaging documentary is the A5, the 300-mile Roman legacy connecting Holyhead to Marble Arch. Isaacs installed his camera at various points to record its many travellers: marching Muslims, Buddhist monks seeking nirvana in Colindale, an alcoholic ex-navvy, whose loneliness is horribly compelling and rarely observed this honestly. As proposed by his 2001 doc Lift – which sought out characters in a tower block – Isaacs may be British cinema's pre-eminent people person, locating strangeness, melancholy and joy in the urban landscape, and those who inhabit it. Almost every subject might have merited their own film, but the brisk diversity is central to what emerges as a subtly pointed, humorous and, above all, humane contribution to the immigration debate: the road has been retraced as a lifeline,...
The road in Marc Isaacs's highly engaging documentary is the A5, the 300-mile Roman legacy connecting Holyhead to Marble Arch. Isaacs installed his camera at various points to record its many travellers: marching Muslims, Buddhist monks seeking nirvana in Colindale, an alcoholic ex-navvy, whose loneliness is horribly compelling and rarely observed this honestly. As proposed by his 2001 doc Lift – which sought out characters in a tower block – Isaacs may be British cinema's pre-eminent people person, locating strangeness, melancholy and joy in the urban landscape, and those who inhabit it. Almost every subject might have merited their own film, but the brisk diversity is central to what emerges as a subtly pointed, humorous and, above all, humane contribution to the immigration debate: the road has been retraced as a lifeline,...
- 2/22/2013
- by Mike McCahill
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ Specially commissioned by the BBC for its hugely successful Storyville television strand before being picked up for theatrical distribution by Verve Pictures, British documentarian Marc Isaacs' latest film The Road: A Story of Life and Death (2012) is an intimate and occasionally affecting piece looking at the experiences of people who move to London in search of a better life. The titular road is the A5 from Holyhead to London, but Isaacs' primary focus is the capital's suburbs found towards the end of the road: places like Colindale and Burnt Oak, where many immigrants have settled; still in close proximity to the road in every sense.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 2/21/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The Irish are out in force at this years BFI London Film Festival, now in its 56th year. The festival runs from October 10th to October 21st and us Irish are out in force. Ok, so not of all of us, but congrats to all who got selected. In the Features section… Pilgrim Hill: Dir. Gerard Barrett Silence: Dir. Pat Collins What Richard Did: Dir. Lenny Abrahamson Citadel : Dir. Ciarán Foy (Co-production with UK) Good Vibrations: Dir. Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Co-production with UK) Kelly + Victor: Dir. Kieran Evans (Co-production with UK) Legends Of Valhalla - Thor (Hetjur Valhallar - ÞÓR): Dir. Óskar Jónasson (Co-production with Iceland and Germany) Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God: Dir. Alex Gibney (Co-production with USA) The Pervert’S Guide To Ideology: Dir. Sophie Fiennes (Co-production with UK) The Road: A Story Of Life And Death: Dir.
- 9/5/2012
- by noreply@blogger.com (Vic Barry)
- www.themoviebit.com
Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress; at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. "94 Elements" Tweetable Logline: Award-winning and upcoming filmmakers each take one element, from hydrogen to plutonium, for a human story around its use. Elevator Pitch: There are 94 naturally occurring elements, from Hydrogen to Plutonium. Together, they make up everything in the world. Affecting our lives in countless ways, their stories are the stories of our personal lives, our economies and our natural resources. "94 Elements" is a cross-media filmmaking project. Award-winning and upcoming filmmakers each take one element for a human story around its use. The project has already produced films with Sundance-winner Nino Kirtadze and BAFTA-winner Marc Isaacs, and any filmmaker can now win $8000 commissions to...
- 5/30/2012
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
"No longer critically marginalized as of lesser importance than the fiction feature film, no longer automatically regarded as 'box-office poison,' and with many of its most notable works stimulating widespread debate throughout print and electronic media, the documentary today is enjoying an unprecedented outburst of creative vitality," write the editors of Cineaste in the new Summer 2011 issue. What's more, the rapid evolution of digital technology has made it possible for documentarians to move fast, to fashion raw material culled from ongoing events into cohesive narratives, arguments and/or essays. Case in point: Zero Silence (site; image above), an up-to-the-minute report on the generation that's brought on the Arab Spring, drawing on footage shot between November 2009 and — literally — just a few days ago.
Not only is Zero Silence screening at the Sheffield Doc/Fest (site), running through Sunday, but we're also teaming up with the festival to present it here,...
Not only is Zero Silence screening at the Sheffield Doc/Fest (site), running through Sunday, but we're also teaming up with the festival to present it here,...
- 6/12/2011
- MUBI
Works by film-makers such as Michael Moore at the Sheffield Documentary Festival illustrate society's erosion of individuality
There is a striking moment in Greg Barker's Sergio, his documentary about Sergio Veira de Mello showcased last weekend at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival, in which the late Brazilian United Nations ambassador is asked by a journalist whether or not the Un's presence in Iraq is just a cover to strengthen the American coalition on occupied territory. His expression switches from attentiveness to fierce disagreement in a split second. "We are," he responds with such a firm a categorical tone it sounds as if he was personally taking offence at the question, "an independent organisation, and we do not, let me be clear, we do not act for anyone."
As it turns out, De Mello had been persuaded by Kofi Annan, Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair to take the impossible job...
There is a striking moment in Greg Barker's Sergio, his documentary about Sergio Veira de Mello showcased last weekend at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival, in which the late Brazilian United Nations ambassador is asked by a journalist whether or not the Un's presence in Iraq is just a cover to strengthen the American coalition on occupied territory. His expression switches from attentiveness to fierce disagreement in a split second. "We are," he responds with such a firm a categorical tone it sounds as if he was personally taking offence at the question, "an independent organisation, and we do not, let me be clear, we do not act for anyone."
As it turns out, De Mello had been persuaded by Kofi Annan, Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair to take the impossible job...
- 11/11/2009
- by Jessica Reed
- The Guardian - Film News
Loopline Film and Screen Training Ireland have announced an updated list of tutors for their upcoming Feature Documentary Workshop series taking place in Dublin in November and December. The workshop is aimed at Irish-based documentary makers who are developing a feature project and there will be 10 participants accepted on the workshop. The tutors now include filmmakers Heddy Honigmann (Oblivion, Forever, Crazy); Marc Isaacs & Rachel Wexler (Men in the City); Peter Liechti, winner of the Prix Europa award for his film 'The Sound of Insects'; Eric Daniel Metzgar (Reporter); David Kinsella (A Beautiful Tragedy); Phil Grabsky (The Boy Who Played on the Buddhas of Bamiyan) and Anne Aghion (My Neighbour, My Killer).
- 10/27/2009
- IFTN
I was having an argument with myself yesterday on the way home from work. It got quite heated. I was assessing the length of time it takes me to get home, and thus attempting to gauge roughly how much free time I would have before sleep stole me away for the night. I realised that it was perfectly possible to estimate the journey to a fairly accurate time-frame: between 50 and 54 minutes. That means that, leaving work at bang on six like any other dispassionate employee, I must arrive home between 6:50 and 6:54. The automatic reaction to this was to simply round up to 7 o’clock. And surely this is the normal thing to do? I wasn’t exactly going to say “right, its 6:54 now and I’ll probably hit the sack around midnight, so that gives me 5 hours and 6 minutes of free time”. That would be absurd. Rounding...
- 9/25/2009
- by Nicholas Deigman
- t5m.com
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