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AMBER AND ME

AMBER AND ME
2020 | Dir Ian Davies | 59mins | UK

Amber has Down’s Syndrome and is about to start primary school with her twin sister, Olivia. Although at first her experience is positive, she starts to struggle and asks to stay at home. Olivia tries to help her sister with her school work, in the knowledge that if the situation doesn’t improve, Amber may have to go to a different school.
The film follows the challenges for both girls through 4 years of primary school and charts the changes in their relationship, uniquely from their own perspectives.
Amber and Me is directed by their father Ian Davies. Ian has worked on several documentaries and fiction features before as a producer / consultant. This is his first film as a director. Listen to the family being interviewed on the BBC R4 Today programme here.

The David Lean Cinema shares a proportion of the ticket price with the distributor when purchased via the link on this page. Following purchase you will receive an email with a viewing link. This will include the option of viewing a recorded Q&A session following the film.
Distributor: Amber Content – no account required.

“…one of the most touching portrayals of childhood you’re ever likely to see.” Isobel James, The Mail on Sunday.
“A beautiful, tender portrait of childhood.” Rachel Wexler, Producer of Emmy award-winning film The English Surgeon.
Mark Kermode reviews the film on 5Live’s Film Review Programme (with Simon Mayo) here.

The original release of Amber and Me was to be theatrically released in March 2020 but had to be pulled because of the pandemic. It is now released to virtual cinemas on World Down’s Syndrome Day on 21 March 2021. More information on this film and an interview with the film maker can be seen at the Down’s Syndrome Association website.

AWAY EMBED

EYE OF THE STORM EMBED

POLY STYRENE EMBED

EYE OF THE STORM

EYE OF THE STORM
2021 | Dir Anthony Baxter | 78mins | GB

James Morrison is widely recognised as one of Britain’s finest landscape artists. His work hangs in the homes of JK Rowling and the Royal Family, as well as in museums, and private collections around the world. As the documentary opens, Morrison faces his greatest challenge: his eyesight is fading fast, and he has one more major painting to complete. From his studio just outside Montrose, Morrison can hear the crashing North Sea. On the wall is a drawing of Mickey Mouse he completed when he was 8 years old, at the outset of World War II.
“My sight has quite badly deteriorated,” Morrison admits. “And the very thought of coming in here and not being able to pick up a brush and do something with it really terrifies me. It really appalls me.” Nevertheless he has agreed to let filmmaker Anthony Baxter follow him as he picks up the brushes again at the age of 85 after being sidelined by a series of operations. And while doing so he reflects on an extraordinary artistic life.

The David Lean Cinema shares a proportion of the ticket price with the distributor when purchased through the link on this page.
Available to watch for 48 hours after purchase.
Distributor: Cosmic Cat Films – no account required.

James Morrison’s work was full of awe for the natural world, and this documentary does his landscape painting full justice – Andrew Pulver in The Guardian.

POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHE

POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHÉ
2021 | Dir Celeste Bell, Paul Sng | 89mins | GB

Poly Styrene was the first woman of colour in the UK to front a successful rock band.
She introduced the world to a new sound of rebellion, using her unconventional voice to sing about identity, consumerism, postmodernism, and everything she saw unfolding in late 1970s Britain, with a rare prescience. As the frontwoman of X-Ray Spex, the Anglo-Somali punk musician was also a key inspiration for the riot grrrl and Afropunk movements. But the late punk maverick didn’t just leave behind an immense cultural footprint.
Celeste Bell, Poly’s daughter, became the unwitting guardian of her mother’s legacy and her mother’s demons. Misogyny, racism, and mental illness plagued Poly’s life, while their lasting trauma scarred Celeste’s childhood and the pair’s relationship.
Featuring unseen archive material and rare diary entries narrated by Oscar-nominee Ruth Negga, this documentary follows Celeste as she examines her mother’s unopened artistic archive and traverses three continents to better understand Poly the icon and Poly the mother.

CAT IN THE WALL

N/C 15+ CAT IN THE WALL
2019 | Dir Mina Mileva / Vesela Kazakova | 92mins | Bulgaria

CAT IN THE WALL tells the true story of how a cat, who chooses the comfy confines of a hole in a wall, changes the lives of aspirational migrants, benefit fraudsters and gentrified Brexiteers.
Life on a council estate in Brexit London – gentrification plans bring an astronomic bill for homeowners and aggravate the community. In the eye of the storm Irina, a Bulgarian single mother, tries to breakthrough as an architect and refuses to live on benefits like most of her neighbours.
She galvanizes the homeowners to appeal against the bill with the Council but the English assure her that any attempt to fight the system is doomed. Irina’s family and people living on benefits clash over the ownership of a cat. А different side of British society is revealed to her and she realises she is trapped in the walls of her property and metaphorically in her mind. She takes a drastic decision to change her life.
English and Bulgarian with English subtitles. See instructions below to activate subtitles.
As a thank you for supporting us, you will get 25% off each ticket purchase. Just enter DLYS at checkout. You will also be supporting the David Lean Cinema as we get a share of every ticket sold using this promo code.
Watch at home now for £7.49 (with promo code DLYS).
Stream available for 48 hours after play started.
Distributor: YourScreen – create account or login.
An explanation of why you may need more than one account for streaming is here.
Film run ends on 31 March 2021.

“This is a terrific comedy-drama… there’s a fresh, naturalistic element to all the performances which makes it feel as though the film was improvised with non-actors, although in fact neither is the case. ” – Wendy Ide, Screen Daily.

To activate subtitles please click on the ‘CC’ button, bottom right of the playback window, and select ‘English’.

ASUNDER

N/C 12+ ASUNDER
2016 | Dir Esther Johnson | 72mins | GB

Using archive and contemporary footage and audio, Asunder collages the stories of people from Tyneside and Wearside to uncover what life was like on the home front, with bombs falling on Britain for the first time, conscientious objectors sentenced to death, and women working as doctors, tram conductors and footballers. The narrative moves from an Edwardian golden era, in which sport grew in popularity and aircraft and cars pointed to a bright new future, to a war that horrifically reversed this progress. In the Battle of the Somme, commencing on 1 July 1916, British, French and German armies fought one of the most traumatic battles in military history. Over the course of just four months, more than one million soldiers were captured, wounded or killed in a confrontation of unimaginable horror.
Available with Hard of Hearing subtitles – see below for details to activate.

As a thank you for supporting us, you will get 25% off each ticket purchase. Just enter DLYS at checkout. You will also be supporting the David Lean Cinema as we get a share of every ticket sold using this promo code.
Mia Bays (Birds Eye View Film) talks to director Esther Johnson here.

Watch at home now for £5.99 (with promo code DLYS). Stream available for 48 hours after play started.
Distributor: YourScreen – create account or login.
Film run ends on 30 April 2021.

“In the plethora of events marking the centenary of the First World War and especially the Somme, ‘Asunder’ really stood out for me: its highly imaginative
concept, brilliant storytelling, geographical and cultural specificity, above all its power to move and connect with the reality of events 100 years ago. A fantastic piece of work.” – Michael Chaplin, writer.
“The footage is expertly threaded together and is complemented by Bob Stanley’s evocative and poetic words that are beautifully voiced by Kate Adie”. – Helen de Witt, BFI London Film Festival.

This film contains subtitles for those with a hearing loss. To activate please click on the ‘CC’ button, bottom right of the playback window, and select ‘English Captions’.

AN IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT

N/C 12+ AN IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT
2020 | Dir Jens Meurer | 99min | Germany | Austria

This documentary, shot (naturally) on 35mm film and ironically available in digital format for streaming platforms, follows modern-day Don Quixote, Florian “Doc” Kaps, an eccentric, enigmatic Viennese biologist who risks his career and entire fortune to take on AN IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT to save the world’s last Polaroid factory in Vienna.
Along the way Doc meets other analogue superheroes: there’s Moleskine founder Maria Sebregondi, a direct-to-vinyl recording session
in Vienna with American Idol singer Hayley Reinhart, and a fateful trip to the Südbahnhotel, a 1902 Grand Hotel in the Alps, an all-analogue
wonder that has stood empty but fully functional for 43 years and that’s set for a revival… and there’s a surprise twist in the tale.
English/German with English subtitles.

As a thank you for supporting us, you will get 25% off each ticket purchase. Just enter DLYS at checkout. You will also be supporting the David Lean Cinema as we get a share of every ticket sold using this promo code.
Watch at home now for £7.49 (using promo code DLYS). Stream available for 48 hours after play started.
Distributor: YourScreen – create account or login.
Film run extended to 23 May 2021.

In the summer of 2007 Apple introduced the iPhone which included the concept of having a phone with a built in camera. In the following year Polaroid, who had ruled the world of instant photography since 1923, was ready to give up and filed for bankruptcy while commencing winding down of all production. The last Polaroid factory to be prepared for closure was in Vienna which was also the home of Florian “Doc” Kaps who decided that the continuing destruction of all things “analogue” should stop and started to seek backing to buy the factory along with all the production machines and staff. This was the start of a very long battle to save many old analogue formats which, in the case of Polaroid, was not helped by the fact that the name could not be used by Doc’s factory along with the discovery that the chemical formula which made up the film itself had been irretrivably lost. Several years later and with a few successes under his belt as he travelled a very bumpy road, Doc’s wife was to refer to him as “The World’s Biggest Loser”.

“essential food for thought for anyone interested in culture and media and their development in the modern age.” – Vladan Petkovic, Cineuropa.
“Florian Kaps – Vienna’s answer to Steve Jobs – enthuses over analogue hardware and makes a persuasive case for moving beyond an online existence” – Andrew Pulver in The Guardian.

Author: Roger Dodger

KILLING ESCOBAR EMBED