If our words are mistranslated - our truth is not
told.
Rejeen Musa was working as a subtitler on 'Surviving
Translation' when the words she was translating began
to unlock painful memories from her own past. As a
female Kurdish migrant and a translator, Rejeen became
the lens through which the film explores the trauma
and life-altering consequences of mistranslation.
In addition to Rejeen, the film captures testimonies
from women who fled their homelands in the hope of
building a new life in the UK. They speak candidly of
the dangers and gender-based violence they suffered in
their past and the arduous journeys they undertook to
escape. They explain that – even after arriving in the
UK – they need to communicate via an interpreter to
secure medical care and apply for asylum; a process
which causes them to relive past traumas and recurring
unequal power dynamics. With their futures held in the
balance – they must speak via a complete stranger who
may or may not have their best interest at heart.
To further illuminate this largely unexamined subject,
the film also presents testimonies from interpreters,
subtitlers and translators who describe the –
sometimes harrowing – challenges that they themselves
face.
Raw testimony, poetic imagery, and academic research
coalesce in this unique meditation on translation,
isolation, and the meaning of 'home'.
Directed and filmed by: Ling Lee, Producers: Ling Lee
& Charlotte Bosseaux, Editor: Ling Lee, Composer
& Sound Designer: Tom Drew, Vocalists: Tania She
& Cliona Cassidy, Production Coordinator Saheliya:
Aisha, Keiko, Alison, Ahlam, Supporting Staff
Saheliya: Anonymous Case Worker, Chibeyu, Fathumo
Hannaa, Khadija Ali, Laila, Rida,
Trauma Training: Judy Ferguson, Additional Camera:
Eilidh Munro & Inma de Reyes, Camera Assistant:
Sarah Fairbrother, Stills Photographer: Eilidh Munro
& Ling Lee, Stand Ins: Kasia Wytrazek, Lea Ozuna,
Nur Ezzah Binti Mahmud, Charlotte Bosseaux, Additional
Voices: Charlotte Bosseaux, Keiko, Odile, Sara,
Anonymous Case Worker, Polina Moshenska, Tianhui Wu,
Sara Ni Eithir, Production Assistant, Sarah
Fairbrother, Edit Assistant & Online Editor:
Fraser Ballantyne, Colourist & Titling: Drew
Gibson, Subtitle & Voiceover Project Management:
Screen Language, Subtitles Kurdish Sorani: Rejeen
Musa, Subtitles El Salvador Spanish: Denice Zura,
Subtitiles Cameroon French: Tatiana Ngah Ebode,
English Subtitler & Proofreader: Alexia Delesalle
Our heartfelt thanks goes to the women of Saheliya –
without whom this film would not have been possible
What
causes a person to consider stepping away from
society, to lead a life of isolation, far from the
modern world?
This is a tender and intimate film about an elderly
hermit in the Highlands of Scotland who opens his life
to director Lizzie MacKenzie whilst he comes to terms
with his increasingly frail body and questions whether
he will be able to live out his last years in the
wilderness he calls home.
Photographs
and Writing: Ken Smith, Directed and filmed by: Lizzie
MacKenzie, Producer: Naomi Spiro, Editors: Ling Lee
& Kieran Gosney, Sound Recordists: Bartek
Baranowski, Sound Designer: Pete Smith, Composer:
Mischa Stevens & Cameron McLellan , Vocalist:
Cliona Cassidy,
Production Manager: Naomi Spiro, Story Consultant(s):
Amy Hardie & Karen Kelly, Co-Producer: Lizzie
MacKenzie, Director's Assistant: Adelaide Pardo , Exec
Producer for Creative Scotland: Mark Thomas &
Benjamin Taylor, Exec Producer for BFI Doc Society
Fund: Lisa Marie Russo, Exec Producer for BBC
SCOTLAND: Louise Thornton, Exec Producer for The
Whickers: Jane Ray
FESTIVALS: Glasgow Film Festival 2022 - World
Premiere on 5th March.
For full festival list contact producer at Aruna
Productions.
AWARDS: Audience Award at Glasgow Film Festival
2022, Audience Award Vancouver International FF
2022, Grand Prize Kendal Mountain Film Festival
2022, Best Single Documentary BAFTA Scotland 2022
LING'S
ROLE: DIRECTOR and EDITOR
Bradley (they / them) has recently joined The Order of
Perpetual Indulgence – an LGBTQ+ protest group who use
religious imagery, drag, and performance to call
attention to sexual intolerance. The group has
provided Bradley with a supportive community and a
social purpose. As someone who has struggled with
their own gender identity for years, Bradley now
identifies as non-binary, neither male or female – but
is aware that this identity is not fully recognised by
wider society or the state. Bradley now has two events
approaching: their wedding to long-term partner, Emma,
and their ordination as ‘Black Veil’ – the highest
level within The Order of Perpetual Indulgence. Will
these two events give Bradley the confidence to step
out into the world as the authentic version of
themself?
Dir:
Ling Lee, Producer: Noé Mendelle, Editor: Ling Lee,
Camera: Ling Lee, Additional Camera: Troy Edige,
Patrick Steel, Sound Recordists: Bartek Baranowski,
Sound Designer & Dubbin Mixer & Composer: Tom
Drew , Vocalist: Cliona Cassidy,
Production Manager: Naomi Spiro, Production
Co-ordinator: Rachel Stollery, Production Intern: Ivy
Pottinger-Glass, Stills Photography: Ling Lee, Exec
Producer for Screen Scotland: Leslie Finlay, Exec
Producer for BBC SCOTLAND: Tony Nellany & Louise
Thornton
This
documentary is part of the Right Here talent
initiative that is run in association with Screen
Scotland and the BBC. It offers Scotland-based
filmmakers a unique opportunity to create a 30-minute
creative documentary for broadcast on TV.
Transmission
date: 3rd August 2021 on BBC Scotland.
Watch full film on BBC iPlayer
- you can find the film under the Right Here
series.
Livingston
Skateboard Park — known as “Livi” — is legendary among
skaters throughout the world. In the 1980s and ‘90s,
Livi was thriving; but forty years on, the surfaces
have deteriorated and become dangerous to skate on. A
local group of three ambitious skate girls — known as
“The Snagglerats” who formed the group to inspire more
girls to skate — are on a mission to save Livi. With
the help of their mums and old school skaters, the
Snagglerats discover Livi’s unique history and an
unexpected chat with Tony Hawk strengthens their
determination to push for positive change. Can the
girls inspire enough support in their community to
make Livi great again?
Dir:
Parisa Urquhart & Ling Lee, Producer: Noé
Mendelle, Editor: Ling Lee, DOP: David Lee, Sound
Recordists: Johanna Sutherland & Bartek
Baranowski, Production Manager: Naomi Spiro,
Production Co-ordinator: Rachel Stollery, Sound
Desiger & Dubbing Mixer & Music: Tom Drew,
Stills Photography: Hannah Bailey, Exec Producer for
BBC SCOTLAND: Steve Allen
Khrzhanovsky
used the story of Soviet physicist Lev Landau – whose
nickname also provided the project's title, DAU – as
the basis for his fictional world. "It is really to
show how people are, it is not particular to that
culture or that time," says d'Anglejan-Chatillon. "It
is about looking at what human nature is capable of,
under a microscope, and the capacity for beauty and
intellect and optimism and change or a capacity for
the opposite.
"In a way what Ilya created was an encyclopaedia of
human relationships and human nature and how things
develop over time in people."
It has been a sprawling project shrouded in secrecy.
Very few journalists have ever been given access. One
who was, Michael Idov, wrote a piece for GQ in 2011
headlined The Movie Set That Ate Itself, describing
Khrzhanovsky as "unhinged".
Mark Brown - arts correspondent for The Guardian
Dir: Ilya Permiakov &
Ilya Khrzhanovskiy,
For full credit list see: IMDB
Miles Apart is an observational
documentary, intimately looking at the clash
of different generations and cultures in a rapidly
changing China.
Twelve years ago, Laomao and his wife Meizi left their
two children in the countryside
to build a business 600 miles away. When they are
joined by their daughter Ying Ying,
it becomes immediately obvious that she doesn't share
her parents' work ethic.
Meizi's frustration is raw as she pushes her daughter
towards employment and
at the same time, her son Lei Lei won't apply himself
to his studies.
The separation of Chinese families by migration is a
story shared by a quarter of rural parents,
most of whom can relate to the frustrations of working
hard for seemingly ungrateful children.
associate producer: Liu
Fan, editor: Adam
Thomas,
composer: Lennert
Busch, sound design: Jay
Price, sound recordist: Kyle Pickford,
production manager: Elisabeth Schusser
language: Chinese mandarin, Anhui dialect with English
subtitles.
Festivals: DokumentArt,
Germany 2011. Freezone Human Rights Festival Belgrade
2011.
Aldeburgh Documentary Festival 2011.
Awards:
One World Media Awards 2011, Student Category
"Miles Apart is made with maturity and confidence and
stood out above the other entries because it feels
like a film, rather than a documentary. The lack of
commentary and style of shooting permits us to peer
into the family life of three generations affected by
the difficulties of rural migration."
One World Media Jury clip
of awards show
Peter Wintonick, filmmaker,
DOCMEDIA etc
"...a beautiful and unusual kind social study...
essentially a verite film with subtle overlayers of
the disruptive forces of internal transmigration,
angry youth, and urbanism all taking place in the
villages and cities of the world's hottest growing
economies but not ABOUT any of those things in any
obvious way..."
LING'S
ROLE: EDITOR
Women from all walks of life make
up the newly formed football team: captain Fadwa is a
petro-physicist, Nama is a student whose family are
internally displaced and goalkeeper Halima is training
to become a doctor.
Against the backdrop of a country in strife – with
vociferous conservative opposition threatening the
women's safety, as well as the national federation
unwilling to take a clear position to support them –
the team's spirit is nothing short of inspirational.
Filmed in the years since Libya's 2011 revolution,
British Libyan Arebi's beautiful, self-shot debut is a
captivating tribute to a young generation trying to
build the future they want, all the way down to
hand-cutting the grass of their future training pitch
to ensure that no matter what, they will play.
Elhum Shakerifar - London Film Festival Programme
Advisor for Iran and the MENA region 2018
Bee
and her lifelong friends, Gael and Gracie make up the
Honey Farm, the only existing all-female Scottish hip-
hop group. Two years after being raped, Bee is at a
crossroads. The incident empowered her to find her
voice as a rapper, yet she is confronted by a dilemma:
anti-depressants help her deal with her trauma but
make her numb and prevent her from creating. After
finding the strength to stop her medication, Bee
realises that her spoken words can help other women
open up about their own experiences.
Dir:
Lea Luiz de Oliveira, Producer: Naomi Spiro, Editor:
Ling Lee, DOP: Troy Edige, Sound Desiger & Dubbing
Mixer: Tom Drew, Performed by: Bee Asha Singh, Exec
Producer for BBC SCOTLAND: Louise Thornton
Production
Company: Aruna Productions
LING'S
ROLE: DIRECTOR, CAMERA
To be a journalist in China you
sometimes need to use a few subtle tricks
to get your stories to print. Sun Hua, an
award-winning investigative journalist
for the Jinan Times, knows just what he can and cannot
get away with and
how best to persuade his bosses to allow him to
continue his work.
He is charming, philosophical but also very
determined.
This film follows Sun Hua at work as he investigates a
story about possible corruption
by a property developer, seeking out residents' views,
negotiating the demonstrations
and dealing with the police. All the time, he quietly
considers his position as a
journalist in a complex country that itself is dealing
with change.
He dreams of 'fairness, objectivity, truth' but he
also knows there are real limits
to what he can do. Yet he continues to push, to
persuade and to publish.
This film explores 21st century China as it is
challenged by a changing world,
pushed by free-thinkers such as Sua Hua and an ongoing
struggle for increasing freedom of expression.
dir: Ling Lee & Ying
Cui, producer: Rodrigo Vazquez - Bethnal Films,
editor: Adam
Thomas, composer:
Lennert Busch, sound recordist: Bai Yuxun,
translators: Aiqin Lin & Bai Xiangwei,
postproduction: VET
Broadcast on Al Jazeera on the
7th May 2012
Screening at the Frontline
Club on the 19th July 2013
This film had to be taken off all websites for our
protagonists' safety as a result of some unexpected
news.
Please click here for more
information
LING'S
ROLE: DIRECTOR, PRODUCER
This
poetry documentary is inspired by Osip Mandelstam's
poem
'What Shall I Do With This Body They Gave Me'.
It is about Ling's past memory of her lost dream to
become a professional dancer.
She's trying to re-live her past in the present but
circumstances bring me back to reality.
DoP: Stil Williams, editor:
Adam Thomas, composer: Lennert
Busch,
sound design: Tudor Petre, sound recordist: Victoria
Franzan
LING'S
ROLE: DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, CAMERA, EDITOR
Wang Peng is an artist born in the early 1960s. Like
most artists born in the same period of time,
he has witnessed and fully experienced the transition of
Chinese contemporary art from non-existence to
existence,
from being underground to being aboveground, from being
outside of the wall to being inside of the wall,
from loneliness to liveliness, from being avant-garde to
being fashionable, from impoverishment to richness.
Wang Peng's personal track is also universal to a
certain extent, shared among a certain number of Chinese
artists.
Wang Peng enacted the very first-known performance work
in China, in 1984.
His work is underpinned by a steadfast resolve to
challenge the conventions and boundaries of art.
This
is the story of a rational, sceptical woman, a mother
and wife, who does not remember her dreams.
Except once, when she dreamt her horse was dying. She
woke so scared she went outside in the night.
She found him dead. The next dream told her she would
die herself, when she was 48.
The Edge of Dreaming charts every step of that year.
The film explores life and death in the context of a
warm and loving family, whose happiness is
increasingly threatened as the dream seems to be
proving true. From the kids reaction to their horses'
death (they taught the dog a new trick – called 'dead
dog'), the film mixes humour, science and married life
as Amy attempts to understand what is happening to
her. Everyone wrestles with the concept of their own
mortality, but few so directly explore and confront
the subject.
When Amy fell seriously ill, as her dream predicted,
she went on a search to change that dream, leading her
to eminent neuroscientist Mark Solms, and to new
understanding of the complexity of our brains.
The final confrontation, going back into her dream
with the help of a shaman, reveals a surprising twist
to the tale.
In the guise of an intimate and entertaining
autobiography The Edge of Dreaming explores the
timeless themes of consciousness and destiny, dreams
and reason. Animation, home movies and the spectacular
Scottish landscape make the journey a pleasure for the
senses and a celebration of the desire for life.
dir/prod/camera:
Amy Hardie, additional editors: Colin Monie
& Michael Culyba,
additional camera: Ian Dodds & Hardie family,
animator: Cameron
Duguid, composer: Jim Sutherland,
sound design: Gunnar
Oskarsson, Digital Colourist: Rob May, Dubbing
Mixer: Sound Post Facility: Bang Post Production,
Final Postproduction:
Envy & Metro Ecosse
A co-production by Amy Hardie Productions, Passion
Pictures and Hard Working Movies
Funded by VPRO, More 4, ZDF/Arte, POV, SAC and
Scottish Screen
in collaboration with the Scottish
Documentary Institute
FESTIVALS
IDFA 2009, 27th Jerusaml International Film Festival,
The Irish Film Institute's Stranger Than Fiction
Documentary Festival, 11th Jewish Film Festival,
2101 DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver,
True/False Film Fest 2010, Docaviv 2010,
12th Thessaloniki Int. Doc. Festival, DocsBarcelona
2010, Daniel Northway-Frank
Hot Docs Canadian Int. Doc. Festival, DOCNZ 2010 in
Auckland and Wellington,
Beldocs 2010 in Serbia, ZagrebDox 2010, Against
Gravity in Warsaw, Martha's Vineyard Film Fest,
Bergen Int film Fest, EBS tv Korea, Kos nt Film Fest,
Prix Europa, Biografilm Festival in Italy,
Tribeca, Edinburgh Internation Filmfestival 2010
Awards Grand Jury Critic Prize - KIEV International
Film Festival 2010
TV SCREENINGS
VPRO - January 2010, P.O.V. - August 2010, More4 -
October 2010, ARTE/ZDF - December 2010
LING'S
ROLE: EDITOR & TECHNICAL SUPERVISOR
Julie Brook is a British artist
who works with the land, where her response to the
forms and
materials to hand is expressed through her work. Over
the past twenty years she has lived
and worked in a succession of wild and remote
landscapes, creating sculptures, paintings, drawings
and films.
During 2008/09 Julie Brook travelled and worked in the
black volcanic desert in central Libya
and in the Jebel Acacus mountains in South West Libya.
The stark landscape influenced
a corresponding shift in the way she made large scale
drawings and sculptural work in situ.
This led to further exploration in 2011/12 in the
semi-desert of North West Namibia where
the absolute nature of the light and shadow is
expressed in the new sculptural work.
The work is transient and changes significantly
according to the light and time of day it is seen.
Brook explores these changes through film and
photography which become in turn the expression of the
work.
'made, umade' is Julie Brook's first solo exhibition
since her return and will be an
immersive experience bringing visitors closer to the
environment and emotion of her work.
exhibitions 2013: Edinburgh - Dovecot
Studios, London - Wapping
Project
sculptures and films by Julie Brook, creative advisor:
Kath MacLeod, Christopher Young
commissioned by Dovecot
Studios, Young Films, Creative Scotland
Poetry
in the Middle East lives and breathes like few other
places.
Poets of Protest uses narrative observational
documentary to reveal the hazardous lives of six
contemporary poets, while beautifully filmed
interludes provide visual interpretations of their
works -
a glimpse of the soul of the Middle East.
From the Egyptian folk hero whose poetry was performed
in Tahrir Square, to a Saharawi war poetess in the Al
Auin camp – this unique series of beautiful films will
challenge pre-conceptions in both its content and
visual form.
Yehia
Jaber: Laughter Is My Exit
The former fighter journeys
across Lebanon to explain why
he now battles for change with nothing but words.
Mazen
Maarouf: Hand Made
Thanks to his outspoken work
the Palestinian poet finds himself
wandering the world with his notebook his only
security.
"Ballet dancers get dodgy feet
from dancing and I get dodgy hands from making their
shoes!"
Ballet shoes may be worn by delicate girls, but
they're crafted by burly men whose hands tell another
story...
We delve into the world of professional ballet dancing
seen through the eyes of a shoemaker
who desperately strives to save the dancer as much
pain as possible by making the shoes as well as he
can.
Meanwhile, a seasoned dancer talks of the pain she
went through dancing at the highest level.
An undiscovered world behind the pomp and perfection.
dir: Tali Yankelevich,
prod: Finlay Pretsell, DoP: Minttu Mantynen, sound
recordist: Sabine Hellmann,
composer: Lennert Busch, sound design: Phil Lee,
exec prod: Sonja Henrici & Noé Mendelle,
production coordinator: Flore Cosquer Scottish
Documentary Institute
In
an immersive film installation shot north of the
Arctic Circle and inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady
from the Sea, Ellida is played by Lianna Fowler,
Doctor Wangel by Angus Wright and The Stranger by
Patrick O’Brien. The work is photographed by Thomas
Zanon-Larcher and directed by Jules Wright. The music
is by Billy Cowie.
Shot in Svalbard in Barentsburg, Pyramiden, Isfjord
Radio, Ny-Ålesund and Longyearbyen in the heart of an
incomprehensible wilderness of inexpressible beauty,
this modern re-telling of The Lady from the Sea
captures a Bergman-like intensity. The environment
shaped the performances, which were played out in the
emptiness of the vast world these essentially lonely
people choose to inhabit.
The work was first shown in London in 2013.
Directed by Jules Wright,
Photographs by Thomas Zanon-Larcher, Music: Billy
Cowie
