Documentary Short Films 2018

Saturday 24 March 2018 – 16:00
91 mins
Certificate: DFF PG
Venue: Dorking Halls


The Dorking Film Festival asked filmmakers in Surrey, the South-East and the rest of the UK to send us their short films. Here are seven of the best documentaries. Take to the skies with the Surrey Borders Movie Makers’ film on the earlier aviator Samuel Cody, join a lifeboat crew operating on the River Severn and take a Super8 journey through the Brexit landscape of London and South East England. A prize will be awarded to the best film in this group at the end of the session.


Documentary Short Films programme

 

Brexit Barista
Director: Adriana Falcinelli. UK 2017, 30 mins.
Raniero Tombaccini, a 46 year old barista from Italy who has lived in the UK for over 20 years, builds his business against the backdrop of Brexit. He talks to his colleagues, family and neighbours in Southampton about what the national decision means for him and them.

Leith Hill: Why I Sleep in a Fortress in the Woods
Director: Claire Marshall. UK 2017, 13 mins.
Inside the camp where Middle Englanders and eco-warriors have united against plans to drill for oil. The Surrey Hills in south-east England have been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. They might also be home to the fifth largest onshore oil deposit in the whole of the UK. An energy company has won a long-running legal battle to undertake exploratory work there. But local residents and environmental activists have forged an unlikely alliance to try to stop them.
NOT IN COMPETITION

My Name is Leo
Director: Hannah Lake. UK 2017, 5 mins.
A day in the life of a very special little boy called Leo. Hannah Lake’s documentary explores how an eight-year old copes with being blind.

Samuel Cody and his Flying Machines
Director: Colin Lewis. UK 2017, 20 mins.
Colin Lewis and the Surrey Borders Movie Makers reveal the fantastic life and times of Samuel Cody and his pioneering efforts to develop manned flight in the early part of the 20th century. The aviator had links to Aldershot and Farnborough and these are explored with the help of the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum.

Severn Lives
Director: George Watkins. UK 2017, 3 mins.
Meet the brave men and women of the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA) Lifeboat crew, based at Sharpness in Gloucestershire. The River Severn is home to the fastest rising tide in the UK, and the volunteers of this lifesaving organisation respond to hundreds of call outs each year.

The Mill
Director: George Watkins. UK 2017, 3 mins.
A look at milling in a traditional English stone mill.

The Potter
Director: Samuel Cocum. UK 2017, 3 mins.
A potter describes his art and why he does it in this mesmerising examination of man and clay.

Whose Dreamland?
Director: John Barlow. UK 2017, 14 mins.
Filmmaker John Barlow takes a Super8 journey through the Brexit landscape of London and South East England. Unashamedly partisan in its outlook this documentary compares imagery of the UK’s nautical heritage against a view of the country as it is today and how it got here.

Image from Whose Dreamland? showing in Documentary Short Films.