Research films and feature trailers
The Granada Centre is committed to supporting the making of films that contribute to debate and discussion in and around social and cultural anthropology conceived in the broadest sense. The films and feature trailers offered on this page were made either by members of staff of the Granada Centre or by Research Fellows or other film-makers supported or associated with the Centre.
The Lover And The Beloved: A Journey Into Tantra
Duration: 70 mins
Filmed in: India 2009
Producer/Director/Camera: Andy Lawrence
Featuring: Rajive McMullen | Sound: Jon Tipler
Editing: Andy Lawrence & David Henderson | Sound Mixing: John Lancaster
An All Rites Reversed Production in partnership with Asta Films and GCVA
A short trailer for our soon to be released feature length documentary. The film is about one man’s journey across northern India and his search for enlightenment. Rajive McMullen, a history teacher, makes the difficult and painful journey into the heart of Tantra, searching for meaning in holy shrines, coming close to death in cremation grounds and enjoying the chaos of the Aghori seekers.
More details.
Holy Hustlers
Duration: 53 min
Filmed in: Botswana 2009
Director: Richard Werbner
Editor: Andy Lawrence
Charismatic, street-wise young men, living in Botswana's capital, command the prophetic domain in Eloyi, their Apostolic faith-healing church, at a time of escalating crisis. Bitter, sinful accusations divide Eloyi's village-based archbishop and his son, the city based bishop. The church itself, seen to be 'under destruction', splits.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, prophets are seen in trance, whirling in ecstasy, praying, running wild in exorcism and feeling patients' pain in their own bodies. But beyond empathy and avowed compassion, prophets hustle and shock.
This film illuminates the creative tension between holiness and hustling by showing how, in this Apostolic church's time of crisis, city prophets assert themselves powerfully because they are both holy and hustlers.
Born
Duration: 56 mins
Filmed in: England 2008
Director: Andy Lawrence in collaboration with Judith Kurutac (UK)
Producer: Birth Rites
Born takes us on a deeply personal journey. Andy Lawrence spent three years in an intimate collaboration with Judith Kurutac, gaining insight into her life's work as an independent midwife. Born examines the roles they play as father and midwife, brought to life by their engagement with two couples who undergo very different experiences of childbirth. Close and un-interrupted footage of physical childbirth pulls away to wide-open landscapes, still and quiet, but heavy with contemplation of practices that have become part of our cultural landscape. The result is an open consideration resonating with the connection between birth and death and the fear inherent in both these momentous processes.
"...his film beautifully captures the confusion and complexity of the male perspective"
Joanna Moorhead, The Guardian 2008
"A very intense and gripping film, Born is marked by an immediacy and purity of instance. The images in this film are hard to confront yet the film leaves us quiet and composed for it subtly gestures towards man's ultimate insignificance before nature."
Aparna Sharma, Women's Feature Service 2009
Shade Seekers and The Mixer
Duration: 57 min
Filmed in: Botswana 2007
Director: Richard Werbner
Editor: Andy Lawrence
Set in Moremi village within Botswana's awesome Tswapong hills, the film makes village elders self-consciously reflexive. The elders, including a controversial healer, view and discuss an earlier film of his séances with a participant, a former patient, now the anthropologist's research assistant.
Their main subject is Seriti. Literally 'Shade', the idea ties dignity, power and charisma to the light in which a person is seen by others, the dead and the ancestors above all. The healer's own Seriti is regarded at risk. He is accused of polluting the earth, of wrongly mixing the Christian and the non-Christian, of making the public private for personal gain. Elders condemn him but he defends his God-given mission for 'the original way'. The film discloses the intimate play of light and dark in villagers' lives, their concern for well-being and the public good, against the background of séances, a funeral, a wedding, and a sacrifice to restore communication with the ancestors.
The Message
Duration: 12 min
Filmed in: England 2003
Director: Andy Lawrence (UK)
Featuring: Mark Gwynne Jones
Producer: Psychicbread
This is the story of a boy unable to give voice to his dreams, a postman who glimpses another world and an old man on the verge of death who fears his life has been wasted. The three are brought together by a message which offers their past, present and future selves the chance of communication. But who will see that the message is for them?
Veldpost International
Duration: Various
Filmed in: Manchester, England 1997-8
Director: Andy Lawrence
Producers: Frans Bromet and Peter Van Ingen for VPRO TV, Nederlands
2 short films from the 7 that Andy made as part of the Veldpost International series.
Matty
03:20 - 19:00 mins, a testimony based documentary about heroin use.
The Glen
00:00 - 14:30 mins, an observational documentary about youth on a housing estate in Manchester.