Tryweryn, The Story of a Valley

An entertaining video filmed over two years. Kids, teachers, heads, parents, ex-pupils tell the story of this unique experimental school. “Kids don’t have to go to lessons at Summerhill and can wear and do mostly what they want. How does that work??!!

Henry Browne, an African American farmer, and his family are profiled in this film. The important job of a farmer during times of war is highlighted, specifically his efforts growing peanuts and cotton. This role is made even more poingnant when they visit the eldest son who is a cadet in the 99th Pursuit Squadron.

Right on our doorstep there is something that feeds us all: living soil. But this precious resource is under threat – from us humans! Our planet needs more than 2000 years to form ten centimetres of fertile soil. What does this mean for the future?

After several farmyard analogies featuring chicks and calves, the well-spoken narrator and director of the film, Winifred Holmes, considers the subject of girls and how they reach adulthood and readiness for the 'important job of motherhood.

"I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or writing, and looked at the sea. I decided to place my Bolex exactly at the angle of light as what Signac saw from his studio which was just behind where I was staying, and film the view from morning till after sunset, frame by frame. One day of the Cassis port filmed in one shot." -JM

In the Espinhaço Mountains one winter, a group of small-town Brazilian girls are experiencing the end of their youth. Impossible romances leave marks on their bodies and the surrounding landscape. Each of the friends finds her own particular way to overcome the loneliness and to live within a tangle of uncertainty.

Nearly 2, 00, 000 farmers have committed suicide in India over the last 10 years. But the mainstream media hardly reflects this. Nero´s Guests is a story about India’s agrarian crisis and the growing inequality seen through the work of the Rural Affairs Editor of Hindu newspaper, P Sainath. Through sustained coverage of the farm crisis, Sainath and his colleagues created the national agenda, compelling a government in denial to take notice and act. Through his writings and lectures, Sainath makes us confront the India we don’t want to see, and provokes us to think about who ‘Nero’s Guests’ are in today’s world.

A mysterious web of international shortwave radio towers once dominated the Tantramar marshlands near Sackville, New Brunswick. For almost 70 years the RCI shortwave towers broadcast around the world. Due to budget cuts, the site was decommissioned in 2012 and dismantled in 2014. Examining themes of identity and memory, the film captures images of the towers over four seasons in various weather conditions, accompanied by the voices of residents and technicians narrating accounts of hearing radio broadcasts emanate from their household appliances.