Feature Film

NOMINATED: BAFTA 2013      WINNER: Brooklyn Film Festival

HD, RED One, 2012

Writer/Director: Tina Gharavi  Producers: Tina Gharavi & James Richard Baillie
Nasrine could be, and is, any teenager. Events throw her world into revolution as circumstances beyond her control change her life forever. In this coming of age story we meet a young woman who is doing her best to understand herself, find a better world, and to deal with the consequences of the politics around her. Through an uncompromising intimate portrait which recalls such films as 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959), Rosetta (Dardenne Brothers, 1999), and Whale Rider (Caro, 2002) we follow Nasrine as she finds out who she is and what she wants from life. However, this freedom has a price. In this coming of age story Nasrine discovers importantly the cost of precious things— belonging versus being different from the rest— and how difficult it is being an individual. I Am Nasrine: A film about love, finding oneself & the eternal search for home.

Supported by:
Bridge + Tunnel Voices

Northstar Ventures

Release Date:
2012

(Announced)

Kurdistan’s first ever thriller film, “The Woman Who Captured Saddam”, is a featurette, which will be made through a unique collaborative process with a joint British-Kurdish team who will come together to produce a genre film with a twist.

Screenwriter Brian Ward (The Interpreter) will devise the script during an initial development period with a Kurdish team, to be followed up with further collaboration and improvisation during filming.

As the production means will be limited, much of the story will be lean, necessitating an improvisational and inventive approach. Director Tina Gharavi (I Am Nasrine) is experienced in these techniques, having experience of producing effective films to a tight budget and timetable in often-hostile conditions, including the “Green-revolution” pro democracy riots in Iran during 2009.

The film is the story of a stranger, haunted by a terrible past, who lands in a strange land, and must navigate his way back home. Arriving in a remote Kurdish village, he needs to find a means of communicating. The stranger is helped by a female tribal chief who helps to heal him. She is the only surviving member of her family. He subsequently discovers there are no men in the village and the unlikely pair set out to find civilisation. But the female tribal chief has plans of her own that need the stranger’s attention.

Borrowing from Kurdish folklore and mythology we will develop a story collaboratively with Kurdish film students who are on a learning experience. The film will be produced by professionals who will mentor and train young film students who will be part of the production team including a team who will document the process of this whole project. The Stranger will star Mozaffar Shafeie as the lead actor and we will be casting the role of the young female tribal lead in the weeks leading up to the making of the film.

A proposed partnership between:
BANKSIDE Pictures (Film Investment)
Bridge + Tunnel (Film Production)
NFTS (Training)
& Kurdistan Regional Government

In this project, filmmaker Tina Gharavi and Alessio Romenzi, will collaborate to consider their subject and the ethics of storytelling.

Working in conflict zones presents a number of challenges: ethical, safety, issues of representation and how to tell stories of the other and ourselves. According to Eduard Steichen “The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself”. What issues are there working in a conflict zone? What is the role of the documentarian and what are the ethical considerations of storytelling? Can art be made out of conflict? These questions will be explored by two veteran documentarians who are experienced in dealing with conflict and storytelling.

Alessio Romenzi has worked in war zones as a photojournalist for over several years, while Tina Gharavi, a filmmaker, has examined the construction of truth in documentary and fiction practice. In March of 2012, they met while working on the issue of Syrian refugees in Northern Lebanon and began a conversation that has lead to a photo and moving image collaboration centred on storytelling, truth and vultures.

For further information about the project, please see: http://syrianproject.wordpress.com

REFLEX 0.4 Regional Short Film Showcase

At Cinemas across the north east

Tuesday 22nd January to Tuesday 11th March 2008

Now in its fourth programme Tyneside Cinema’s REFLEX Regional Short Film Showcase begins a tour of the region’s cinemas. The Newcastle and Gateshead – based cultural cinema tours more of the most exciting and innovative short films made in the North East, reflecting the diversity of the many talented filmmakers living and working in the region.

Audiences can enjoy the cream of what the region can offer at a series of specially-selected venues including Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham, Gala Theatre, Durham, Darlington Arts Centre, Customs House, South Shields and Arc, Stockton-on-Tees.

This year’s REFLEX programme premiered at a sold-out public launch event in December at the Tyneside Cinema’s temporary home at the Old Town Hall, Gateshead. The programme includes work by filmmakers both established and new.

Richard Fenwick and Dan Elliott, who have been making short films in the region over the last five years, are currently developing their first features, whilst Guy Frankland and James McAleer are just making their move into directing.

REFLEX represents a chance for many directors to experience the benefits of not only having an audience see their hard work.

A Bridge + Tunnel Production

Last of the Dictionary Men:

Stories from the South Shields Yemeni Sailors

Wednesday 2 April = Monday 5 May 2008

Over the course of more than 100 years, thousands of seamen from Yemen settled in the small town of South Shields to work in the established maritime industry based on the rivers Tyne and Wear in the North East of England. Bridge + Tunnel Productions, over three years, worked with this community to create Last of the Dictionary Men, an exceptional multi-disciplined exhibition which highlights the complexities of Modern British identity. The exhibition will be on show at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art from Wednesday 2 April until Monday 5 May 2008.

Last of the Dictionary Men is a captivating exhibition documenting the lives and memories of a vital but little-known part of British immigrant history, the establishment of the UK’s oldest Muslim and Arab Community in South Shields, Tyne & Wear. Importantly this exhibition does not only bring attention to this particular small community, but it also offers new forms of representation; new ways of seeing, hearing and understanding the complexity of Muslim identities within Britain today.

The combination of large-scale oral history, photographic and film installations by artists Tina Gharavi and Youssef Nabil deliver charismatic insight into this small yet significant community. Today only 13 men from the first generation survive and their stories are told through this collection of works. Over the course of three years Bridge & Tunnel Productions collaborated with the seamen, to record their endangered stories and experiences and represent them in a new and challenging content. From the accounts of 800 Yemeni men from Tyneside who died at sea in World War II, to the misinterpretations of the Trade Union riots at the Customs House in the 1930s to the long forgotten wedding of Muhammad Ali in 1977 – Last of the Dictionary Men is an inspiring and unheard story of vital importance.

Tina Gharavi’s 14 oral history films are presented on individual television screens. Positioned at the real life height of each of the Yemeni men, they frankly narrate the stories of their lives, marriages and the living history of the subsequent four generations. Intricately hand-painted portraits by internationally renowned photographer, Youssef Nabil hang above only 13 of the 14 TV monitors, following the death of one of the gentlemen during the creative process.

The exhibition will be accompanied by The King of South Shields, a documentary on boxer Muhammad Ali’s extraordinary wedding in the South Shield mosque, directed by Tina Gharavi, Bridge & Tunnel Productions on show in the Level 1 cinema space.

For further information please contact:

Ann Cooper BALTIC Media Officer T: 0191 440 4915 E: annc@balticmill.com

Liz Goldie, BALTIC Communications Assistant T: 0191 440 4912 E: lizg@balticmill.com

(Digital Video, 24’, 2012)
An exploration of friendship, masculinity and race which focuses on the relationship between Russ, a council worker from Newcastle, and the most famous person in the world, boxer Muhammad Ali. This true story, using previously unseen archive footage, shows a side of Muhammad Ali never seen on British television. Intimate, comedic, radical, heartbreaking – The King and I will change the way people view the Louisville Lip.

Funded by:
Channel Four

Situated on Floor 4 of Curtis Mayfield House, home of World Headquarters, Bridge + Tunnel Studios offers a secure, clean and affordable space that will act as a blank canvas for your creative work. We aim to provide a diverse arts community with a new opportunity to enhance the city centre’s cultural status and provide a foothold for creatives looking for a short-term, flexible lease.

Document Download: Bridge + Tunnel Studios

(Digital, 5’, 2005)
A community based project working with young refugee and asylum seekers from Tyneside, to produce a short film. Over a five-day period in the summer holidays, seven young people worked with director, Tina Gharavi to learn about various aspects of filmmaking from storytelling, directing, camera, sound, and acting. They created their first short film Everyone is Different, which was screened at Westgate Hill Primary School.

Supported by:
First Light, The High Sheriff Award and Westgate Hill Primary School

(DVD, 4 short films, 2005)
Community project phase three of a unique experimental community arts project working to develop community drama and film projects. Various local community arts workers are collaborating to produce process-oriented workshops and projects to train those who are interested in drama and media production techniques, culminating in a screening of their own original work.

The Sword – A film about the strangeness and melancholy of everyday life

Asylum Birds – A film about trying to find a home and a place to be accepted

Cheating: East & West – An investigation on the attitudes of women and the experience of cheating husbands

Metallica Iranian Style – An investigation into heavy metal music and the cultural attitudes of Eastern / Western youth

Funded by:
Northern Film & Media, Scarman Trust

Supported by:
New Writing North, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle Central Library

Short Drama

(Digital, 10’, 2006)
A community based film project working with young a diverse group of young people from Marine Park Primary School and Hadrian School in South Shields.

Supported by:
Creative Partnerships

The Customs House

(Interactive Website, 2006)
An interactive web narrative project for Middle-Eastern asylum seekers and refugees based in the North-East of England to share their stories worldwide. The project will take the form of a website, continually developed and updated by Kooch group members. Incorporating their ideas and work, each individual Kooch member will develop a non-linear narrative story. The concept is that each members’ web-page will symbolize a landscape. This virtual landscape could represent the journey from their homeland, via the countries they traveled through, to Tyneside. The project is being developed in partnership with the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK)

Funded by:
Hallwalls Media Institute, The National Endowment of the Arts (US)Northern Film & Media, Newcastle City Council, Your Homes Newcastle, Awards for All, Arts Council England

(Digital, 6’30, 2007)
Summercamp Runaway

A tale of one young girl’s struggle to find new friends at a summer camp in Newcastle.

Supported by:
Local Network Fund, The William Leech Charity, The High Sheriff Award, Westgate Hill Primary School and the North of England Refugee Service

(Video, 11’, 2000)

Wiki: An Interactive Website is a new project to create online stories to reflect young people’s real-life experiences in fictional form. This will be a visible process giving young people the tools to experiment with narrative and empowering them to inspire change while inventing fresh cinematic and multimedia models.

To see full site, please follow http://www.ali-in-wonderland.com/phase1/

Funded by:
MediaBox Fund

An i-Kooch in Schools educational pack will be produced in association with this project during Spring 2008.

Supported by:
ISIS Arts

Creative Partnerships

Awards for All

(2 x Digital Video, 2009)
Wiki: Hope is a project produced by young people aged 16 – 25 in collaboration with media professionals to produce a website containing two engaging short films discussing migration and a collection of oral histories emphasising stories of migration.

Asha : Hope is a short drama which looks at a young girls experience after she arrives from Uganda to live in the UK.

Rwanda to Newcastle is a short coming of age documentary which looks at a young girls journey and how she overcomes the traumas she faced from the Rwandan war, and subsequently arriving in Newcastle.

Funded by:
First Light Movies, Heritage Lottery Fund

In Collaboration With:
Newcastle University, The Baring Foundation

(Interactive Website, Pre-Production 2011)
Using our feature film Ali in Wonderland as a backdrop this website will offer secondary schools an opportunity to learn more about the themes of the film through new media and interactive media.

Supported by:
The Wonderland Volunteering Project

(Red One, 2012) How do you cope with being convicted of a crime you know you did not commit? What happens when you are condemned to death row and spend over 18 or 30 (sometimes many more) years of your life locked away; often not knowing how long you will be alive? How do people survive when placed in such extraordinary situations?Since DNA evidence has come into play, approximately 300 people have been released from death row after tests showed they had been wrongfully convicted. Resurrection After Exoneration (a charity based in the US) is continuing the battle to release those condemned to death in the US where scientific evidence can contradict the verdict.How many innocent people are there in prison? We will never know for sure, but the few studies that have been done estimate that between 2.3% and 5% of all prisoners in the U.S. are innocent (for context, if just 1% of all prisoners are innocent, that would mean that more than 20,000 innocent people are in prison).

Sundance nominated filmmaker Tina Gharavi proposes to take a look at the human struggle of those who are fighting to get capital cases and evidence re-examined. We will follow investigators at Resurrection After Exoneration, who will speak about their current campaigns and the trials and tribulations of doing this type of work.

Many exonerees are released from their cells without fanfare, apologies or anywhere to go. What happens then when you are found innocent and released from death row? How do you deal with the suspicions and hatred you experience when you are released? This film explores the psychological and emotional experience of an exoneree. The film will weave the emotional experience of those who have been released as they come to terms with what has happened in their lives. B+T has made contact with a charity in New Orleans who works with the men and women who have been exonerated and helps them to rebuild their lives after their experiences.

However, what of those who have already been killed? Does capital punishment still have a place in an advanced civilisation? We will meet with families of those who have been wrongfully convicted and exonerated after death. We will interview the Warden of the notorious Angola Prison in Louisiana and those charged with looking after those who come in to the prison (lifers) and usually will never leave prison unless they die. How do warders deal with the issue of wrongful conviction?

Through a lyrical and intensely emotional film, we will weave a variety of narratives to understand a complex issue at the extreme of human experience. Using documentary voices of the exonerees, interviews, archival footage and experimental drama, the documentary will explores a topic few have considered. How to square those years of being locked up with being released an exonerated man.

People Like Us News

Bridge + Tunnel is currently seeking R & D funding to travel to New Orleans to complete this trailer and further develop the project with interview footage and commentary from key people and partners.

(Announced, Currently in Development)

A female Travis Bickle with an office job: Set in New York City post 9/11, Torshee explores the cultural schizophrenia of a Iranian-American woman and her dilemma with identity and her desire to make everything right.

Written by:
Tina Gharavi & Margaret Wilkinson

Produced with Tall Man Short Man Productions, Jamie Korn & Chris Bailey
Tackle is the story of a young teenage footballer that faces
the consequences of coming out to his friends and family as a
homosexual.
Set against a remote, rural, Northern backdrop, we observe
Daniel’s struggle to overcome and challenge misguided views
and discrimination from his friends and family.
Daniel is a talented Sunday league football player. Now 16, he
has discovered whom he is and that he is gay. However, being
true to this part of himself and open about his sexuality with
conviction may be the biggest challenge he’s ever had to
tackle.
The film observes Daniel over the hours before his first game
of football the day after his sexual identity has been
revealed to his parents and teammates. We follow Daniel on his
journey to the match as his anxiety builds. Relations with his
nearest and dearest fray as thoughts of the locker room prematch
loom.
Wearing our influences on our sleeves I want to explore and
borrow from the dramatic highs of Andrea Arnold and the subtle
lows of Duane Hopkins and Steve McQueen while creating empathy
for a Dardene Brothers-esque character.

Dir/Prod Matthew Kay & Jasper Kain
This is a film about the journey of a British University football team who are transformed by the events they bear witness to in the Middle East which force them to change their outlook on life.

In the year of the Arab Spring, a diverse London based team, head to Egypt armed with a football and a desire to engage with local communities. International news unfolds around them. With events ranging from the siege of the Israeli embassy in Cairo to bombings in Gaza the boys quickly see that this tour is about more than just football.

The worsening situation forces the team to rethink their agenda. Do they carry on with their journey into Palestine? The outcome of their decision and the subsequent events that follow make them realise that there is a greater goal in life.

Over The Wall provides a refreshing insight into this unique group of young men who, through their journey, challenge common perceptions of 21st century London, the Middle East, football and activism.

The Filmmakers

Jasper Kain and Matthew Kay’s first foray into the world of documentary. Matthew graduated in Film from Queen Mary’s in 2011, having previously made several short films. Jasper is a Politics and Social Anthropology graduate from SOAS University, who was co-President of the Students’ Union last year.

Both recent graduates of university they set out to document this adventurous tour on what proved to be a transformative experience. Upon their return they both felt impelled to make a documentary that can not only entertain and educate but also inspire. They are keen to show the importance of gaining knowledge through lived experience, provide stimulating representations of different identities and celebrate the power of youth taking a stand.

The Tour

The pair traveled on a very low budget, with the essential equipment and a determination to capture this incredible journey that transformed all those involved. From interviewing Egyptians in the heart of Tahrir Square amidst the protests, to filming Palestinian children in a rural village singing their national anthem with passion, the trip was full of extraordinary experiences every step of the way. They developed close bonds with the team, as well as locals who engaged with the camera both as a means of expression as well as a point of reflection.

In order to enter Israel the cameras, as well as the nature of the documentary, had to be hidden. The recorded footage was smuggled through the border in the players’ suitcases. As a result the two filmmakers became inextricably linked to the tour and attached to the issues they experienced.

The Film

The documentary is about much more than just a football tour. Shot during enthralling times they capture several events that made front page news back home. By documenting the team’s personal experience, the film provides a humane insight into these events which are rarely found in the media. These young people express their opinions on the changing world around them and display increased awareness as a group eventually coming to find a political voice.

Last of the Dictionary Men: Stories from the South Shields Yemeni Sailors is an exceptional hybrid exhibition consisting of exciting major and large-scale visual arts installations by internationally renowned artists, Tina Gharavi and Youssef Nabil.

Bridge + Tunnel Voices engaged members of the 1st generation South Shields Yemeni community to create a project recording the history of their community, including their unique stories of migration, their working lives and their integration into the North East. The work has captured their remarkable and unknown heritage – one that has thrived in South Tyneside for over a century. Some of the older members of the community (having mainly worked as seamen in the Merchant Navy) have lived in the area for over 60 years and are part of a distinct Diaspora that is one of the oldest recorded Middle Eastern communities existing in Britain today.