City of Cranes

Driven by extensive archive material and interviews with those who know her, this is the astonishing story of how a triple outsider – a woman, a scientist, and an East German – became the de facto leader of the “Free World”, told for the first time for an international audience.

Part city symphony, part visual poem, the film explores the invisible life of a city, seen through the eyes of crane drivers working high above its streets. Within the loose structure of a day, starting with the drivers climbing up at dawn and ending with them coming down after a nightshift, the film observes the city as it awakens with a bustle of activity, through the lull of midday and the manic rush in the evening, until it calms down again deep into the night. Throughout the film, the drivers share their thoughts and reflections on London and life in general. What emerges is a lyrical meditation about how our existence is shaped through the environment we inhabit, both for the drivers high up in the sky and the people on the ground they are watching.

A lyrical and haunting portrait of reindeer herding in the twilight expanses of the Lappish wilderness.

A dazzling display of flying pigeons above the cacophony of Old Delhi.

Every evening during exam season, as the sun sets over Conakry, Guinea, hundreds of school children begin a nightly pilgrimage to the airport, petrol stations and wealthy parts of the city, searching for light to study. This evocative and poignant documentary shows how children reconcile their daily lives in one of the worlds poorest countries with their desire to learn.

A short visual meditation, OF THE UNKNOWN is set in Hong Kong where millionaires and the ‘working poor’ live side by side in one of Asia’s wealthiest and most densely populated cities. The film explores how our notions of freedom and happiness are shaped by the place we occupy, both literally and metaphorically, in our society. What is the importance of freedom when one faces a daily struggle for survival? Is it even possible to have dreams, or to dream, if one was never given any opportunities in life? https://vimeo.com/113548756