Vera  Simmonds        Film  and  Television  Editor
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documentary

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Non Western (2020)

Dir/Prod: Laura Plancarte
Exec. Prod: Iván Trujillo
Dur: 93'00"


NON WESTERN follows a Native/Non Native couple in Montana, ahead of their wedding. We see the challenges their interracial family face, and through their struggles we witness an on-going chain of oppression, exploring how gender and identity issues affect different generations in Montana. 
Watch the trailer here...

Official selection at Visions du Réel 2020

LP Films/TV Unam

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Independent Miss Craigie (2020)

Dir/Prod: Lizzie Thynne
Ass. Prod: Hollie Price, Adele Tulli
Dur: 100'00"


Sometime after her death, film director Jill Craigie (1911-1999) reopens an old suitcase that she left in her house. The contents prompt a series of memories of the extraordinary life and loves of this forceful, charismatic woman, whose work has been long neglected. Independent Miss Craigie uses the director’s unseen papers, along with her films, letters, photographs and interviews to reveal her energetic struggles to get her radical films made and distributed.
Part of a three-year research project, ​find out more here...

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Left Coast (2020)

Dir/Prod: Carol Salter
Prod: Fleur Nieddu
Exec. Prod: Luke Schiller, Rebecca Mark-Lawson
Dur: 14'26"


In the coastal towns of North West England, dedicated volunteers hand out kindness and food to help those left behind. Edited with Emiliano Battista. Part of The Uncertain Kingdom, a collection of twenty short films, offering a unique portrait of the UK today.
Find out more here...

In cinemas nationwide in April 2020

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Salvation (2018)

Dir/Co-Prod: Nikola Ivanovski
Co-Prod: Elisa De Pasquale
Dur: 17'00"


In a village in Sicily, which has lost 90% of its population over several decades due to emigration, the mayor saw an opportunity to save the village from oblivion by inviting the migrants that had started to cross the Mediterranean to get to Europe, to settle there. The locals are happy about the village returning to life and are welcoming to the migrants. But are the migrants going to stay in Sutera and save it? Or is the village saving the migrants?

​
Official selection at MakeDox 2019

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Hermanos / Siblings (2017)

Writer/Dir: Laura Plancarte
Prod: Laura Plancarte
Exec. Prod: Mike Lerner
Dur: 80'00"


Set against the backdrop of the 2016 US Presidential election, Hermanos examines illegal immigration between the United States and Mexico, and the disparities between the fantasy and the reality of the American dream for people living on both sides of the border. Two Mexican brothers, deported from the US for life, dream of returning and long for their mother, who abandoned them as children, in pursuit of her own American dream. Meanwhile, Miss Montana '78 finds herself down on her luck, mourning the simplicity of her childhood, her lost relatives and praying that Donald Trump's Presidency will fix America and her life.
Watch the trailer here...

Official selection at the Raindance Film Festival 2017
Official selection at FICG in LA 2017
Official selection at the
Guadalajara Film Festival 2017

Roast Beef Productions/LP Films
www.hermanossiblingsfilm.com

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Life and Death Row (2016)
Series 2 Episode 1 "Execution"

Dir/Prod: Marina Parker
Exec. Prod: Aysha Rafaele, Fergus O'Brien
Dur: 59'00"


In 2009, 21 year old Daniel Lopez struck and killed a police officer with his car, as he was fleeing police. Sentenced to death for this crime, he has spent the last six years resisting all appeals in an effort to speed up his execution. His state-appointed attorneys argue that he is using the justice system as a form of suicide. His family are pleading with him to fight to stay alive for them. This film documents the five weeks leading up to Daniel's set execution date. Made for BBC Three online, it has also been broadcast on BBC One.

BBC Three

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Half Way (2015)

Dir:
Daisy-May Hudson
Prod: Alice Hughes, Thea Paulett, Claire O'Neill
Dur: 93'00"


A moving portrait of the UK housing crisis, told through the experience of one family. Filmed over two years, Daisy-May is both director and daughter as her and her family fight to retain their dignity whilst they wait to be rehoused by the council.

The film highlights the current attitudes and taboos towards homelessness, "scrounge culture" and dependency in an increasingly difficult economic climate, within a framework of everyday family highs and lows.
Watch the trailer here...


Nominated for Best Cinema Documentary at the Grierson Awards 2017

Beehive Films
www.halfwayfilm.co.uk


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Tierra Caliente (2015)

Writer/Dir: Laura Plancarte
Prod: Luke Schiller, Ellis Freeman, Enrique Arroyo Schroeder & Carolina Amador
Exec. Prod: Mike Lerner
Dur: 80'00"


This feature length hybrid documentary provides a window into the lives of an ordinary family from the Mexican state of Guerrero. Caught in the crossfire between the Narco, the military and the vigilantes, their lives have changed beyond recognition since Ex-President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels in 2006. The script was compiled from audio recordings made by the director and the family themselves.
Watch the trailer here...

Winner of Best Film at the World of Film International Festival 2016
Nominated for Best Feature at the
Guadalajara Film Festival 2015
Official selection at the Raindance Film Festival 2015

Roast Beef Productions/Clownfish Films



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Paint It Pink (2015)

Dir/Prod: Sophie Maccorquodale
Exec. Prod: Richard Mortimer
Dur: 42'00"


Following the stars of the East London alternative drag scene, Sink the Pink, as they prepare for their first ever Summer Ball. Backstage and front of house footage inter-cuts with intimate interviews revealing the humour, the politics, the tears and the love between these vibrant, creative and inspiring characters.
Watch the full film here...

SMACC Films


The Third Half (2014)

Dir: Georgia Oakley
Prod: Tabs Breese
Dur: 12'57"

On the 15th April 2014 the Supreme Court of India passed a law recognising the transgender community as India's "third sex". Over the coming years the filmmakers intend to document what changes, if any, this will bring.

The Third Half is an extended trailer in preparation for a feature length documentary.

More info here...

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Love Me Tender (2014)

Dir: Timothy Knights
Prod: Timothy Knights, Vera Simmonds
Dur: 27'26"


A fragment of time in the lives of three young men who are facing the future with trepidation. One just out of jail, one becoming housed, and one adjusting to the separation from his girlfriend and their daughter. Their tentative optimism is framed by chaotic euphoria, boredom, isolation and yearning.  Who can you trust if you can’t trust yourself?
Watch the trailer here...

Official selection at Sheffield Doc Fest 2014
Shortlisted for the Grierson Awards 2014 (Best Student Documentary)
Official selection at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2015


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Laura (2012)

Dir: Timothy Knights
Pro
d: Timothy Knights
Dur: 20'16"


Laura is sleeping in a fisherman's hut. The fishermen care for her, but think she should return home to her mother. Laura, a fantasist, is drawn to the fishing community as a means of escape, and yet she talks about her mother endlessly. The film follows her from the seemingly idyllic world of the fishermen which, fuelled by alcohol, erupts, sending her back home. We discover how a complicated past has held mother and daughter in an extraordinary and perhaps destructive bond.

Official selection at the East End Film Festival 2013

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The Postbox (2013)

Dir: Jack Warrender
Prod: Jack Warrender
Dur: 23' 48"

In 2012 workmen in Birmingham discovered a sealed Royal Mail postbox which still contained 10 undelivered letters. Jack Warrender sets out on a road trip around Britain to find the intended recipients, and to see how their lives could have been changed by the contents of these letters.

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Risk (2012)

Dir: Anne Birgitte Borcher Petersen
Dur: 4'17"

A short experimental documentary film in three parts. Inspired by Anais Nin's poem "Risk".

Please contact me for a PRIVATE SCREENER of excerpts or full versions of any of these films.