Saturday 17th  Matinee

  • Bonnington Square
    UK 2011 - 52 mins.
    Alistair Oldham

    Bonnington Square is right in the heart of London, just two minutes walk from the river and just ten minutes from the Houses of Parliament.

    In the early eighties the one hundred houses of the Square were all squatted, forming a bohemian community from all around the world. The squat had two community gardens, a cafe, a wholefood shop, a nightclub, a newsletter and even a milkbar.
    Although the Square is no longer squatted, there are still many low rent housing cooperatives, and the cafe and the gardens are still collectively run, and is now a model of a modern sustainable urban community.

  • Windows
    UK - 2010 - 8 mins.
    Ruth Cook
     
    'Windows' is a brief but intimate look into the lives of five people living in a homeless shelter in London.

    Each section is personally narrated offering a rare glimpse of people regularly excluded from society. Their stories and backgrounds are all very different but they all possess a common bond as people affected by homelessness.

    They all deal with this struggle in different ways - some paint, others collect interesting knick-knacks - but they all cast light on an important issue affected millions of people around the world.

  • Grace
    Switzerland 2011 - 23 mins.
    Meagan Kelly

    'Grace' gives us a look into the lives of scavengers in the Philippines through the story of a determined young girl. 13 year-old Mary-Grace Rapatan has lived on a garbage dump in the Philippines her entire life, picking through mountains of trash to help feed her family. She seems trapped in a cycle of poverty. However, Mary-Grace is determined to give herself and her family a better future by getting an education. She scavenges on the weekends to pay for school, but family tragedy soon brings her back into a prison of poverty.

    This film, told entirely though Mary-Grace, shows us the enormous burden one girl must carry for her family, and the power education has to give children hope for the future.

    While in Grade 5, Mary-Grace's father (the family breadwinner) has a stroke, and the girl is left with a choice: quit school or starve. She begins scavenging eight hours a day on the Umapad garbage dump so her family can afford to buy rice. Footage taken from a head-camera worn by Mary-Grace give us an up-close and disturbing look at the appalling conditions of the Umapad garbage dump. After months of scavenging in the heat only to make about a dollar a day, Mary-Grace begins to wonder if she'll ever get a second chance to build a future for her family.

    'Grace' is meant to be a film that shows us the important role education has in helping lift children and their families out of poverty.

  • Jimmy
    UK 2011 - 12 mins.
    Martin Smith
    WATCH TRAILER
     

    Martin Smith's latest project is a commission for the Scottish Documentary Institute, Creative Scotland and BBC Scotland.

    JIMMY is a film about the disabled rights campaigner Jimmy McIntosh MBE. "A day in the life of Jimmy McIntosh, MBE, who has been campaigning for disabled rights since 1972.

    See the world from his point of view, as a wheelchair bound cerebral palsy sufferer, in this film by Scottish Bafta-winning director Martin Smith." Sheffield Docfest

    The film gives a unique insight into this life - an incredibly intimate point-of-view portrait - with shooting taking place over six months ultimately capturing a day in the life.

  • Ring Laila
    USA 2010 - 25 mins.
    Anuradha Rana
    WATCH TRAILER

    Ring Laila is about the spirit that prompts a person to fight against the environment they live in – the tradition and convention, the illiteracy and poverty, the culture and religion – to be free to live their own life.

    Razia Shabnam, India’s first Muslim woman to take up boxing, lives this struggle and is a remarkable inspiration as she fights to live her own life. Alam Ara aspires to follow in her footsteps.

  • Murder Mouth
    Australia 2011 - 17 mins.
    Madeleine Parry
    WATCH TRAILER
     

    You can’t eat a steak without killing the cow.

    Madeleine loves her Greek family’s traditional lamb souvlaki but her friends claim that meat is murder. Well, Madeleine’s never killed anything bigger than a spider, so she decides to reconnect the animal and the meal or never eat meat again. After talking to the people who slaughter animals for their livelihood she is encouraged to do it herself, but even if she can kill an animal, will she still want to eat it afterwards?
     

EDINDOCS

Saturday 17th Matinee:

1.00pm: Bonnington Square
1:25pm: Windows
1:35pm: Grace
2:00pm: Interval, Loopy Lornas open for refreshments
2:25pm: Jimmy
2:45pm: Ring Laila
3:15pm: Murder Mouth

Please use the links below for more information on our other sessions.