tim travers hawkins

Surpriseville in Official Selection at DocPoint

2012-01-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

www.docpoint.info/en/content/supriseville

Surpriseville Receives Honourable Mention at Off Cinema Festival

2011-12-23T09:48:00.001-08:00

Surpriseville was awarded an Honourable Mention from the Jury at the Off Cinema Festival in Poland.

Surpriseville in Official Selection: Doclisboa & Kassel Dokfest

2011-10-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

Surpriseville will be screening in competition at Doclisboa on the 25th and 27th of October:

http://www.doclisboa.org/2011/en/edicao/programadetalhe/812

It will also screen at Kassel Dokfest on the 10th of November.

1000 Voices wins in Dallas

2011-10-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

1000 Voices wins Best Short Documentary Award at the 24th Dallas Video Festival.

1000 Voices Screening at Tricycle Cinema, London.

2011-09-20T03:26:00.001-07:00

Amnesty International, Hampstead, present a showcase of short films on human rights issues, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. Featuring animation, documentary, and fiction, the showcase offers a global portrait of human rights issues related to Amnesty’s campaigns, including refugees and asylum, women’s human rights, and prisoners of conscience.

Lenny Henry, actor and comedian famous for everything from Othello to Comic Relief Does Kibera, will introduce the event.

The Q&A after the screening will be hosted by Geoff Andrew, Head of Film Programme, BFI Southbank, and consultant editor at Time Out.

Confirmed speakers include acclaimed writer/director Sue Clayton (director of Hamedullah: the Road Home, many C4 documentaries and dramas and the feature film The Disappearance of Finbar) and the director Afarin Eghbal and screenwriter Francesca Gardiner who created Abuelas and Tim Travers Hawkins, director of 1000 Voices.

Tickets: £9.50
Profits will go to Amnesty International.

Suitable for age 15+

www.amnesty.org.uk/hampstead

Nomination for CANON BEST EMERGING DIRECTOR AWARD

2011-05-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've been nominated for the CANON BEST EMERGING DIRECTOR AWARD at the Open City London Documentary Festival.

The film will screen on the 17th of June:

The Jury is made up of some very big names:

EDDIE BERG (Director of the British Film Institute) DAVE CALHOUN (Film Editor of Time Out, London) SIMON CHINN (Oscar winning producer of Man on Wire and Project Nim) MAREK HOVORKA (Director of Jihlava Int Documentary Festival) LUCY MUSGRAVE (Director of Publica) PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI (BAFTA winning director of My Summer of Love and Last Resort) NICK PEARCE (Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research) PENNY WOOLCOCK (Acclaimed Documentary and opera director)

Surpriseville Selected for Official Competition at SILVERDOCS

2011-05-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

Surpriseville has been selected for SILVERDOCS the American Film Institute Documentary Festival in Washington DC.

Surpriseville Wins at Riverrun International Film Festival

2011-05-28T09:07:00.001-07:00

Surpriseville was awarded the Best Short Documentary Award at the 2011 Riverrun International Film Festival in the USA.

Surpriseville: Official Selection at Hotdocs 2011

2011-03-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/surpriseville

New Video: Cut From Stone

2011-03-22T02:26:00.000-07:00

Cut From Stone from tim travers hawkins on Vimeo.

New Video I made for The Magic Lantern's latest single Cut From Stone.

Surpriseville in Visions du Reel

2011-02-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

Surpriseville in official selection of Visions du Reel festival in Switzerland.

Surpriseville at Glasgow Film Festival

2011-01-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

Surpriseville is in the official selection of Glasgow Film Festival.

It is screening on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th of February.

http://www.glasgowfilm.org/festival/whats_on/2208_competition_3_crossing_the_line

Surpriseville at Sheffield

2010-11-12T03:13:00.000-08:00

Last week Surpriseville had its World Premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest. I attended along with editor Tim Grabham (AKA Iloobia). That's two Sheffield Premieres in two years for us both so lets hope it can keep that level of success going for years to come.

The film had a great reception from the audience and the feedback I got afterwards was overwhelmingly positive.

Surpriseville screened with Waiting for Superman, a film which unfortunately I hated: two hours of slick neo-liberal propaganda blaming the failure of the US education system on bad teachers and promoting marketization of schools.

Anyway click here for the write up of the festival in Indiewire (in which Surpriseville gets a generous mention).

Surpriseville: Sheffield Doc/Fest Premiere

2010-10-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

My latest documentary Surpriseville will have its World Premiere in the official selection at Sheffield Doc/Fest this November.

The film was shot in the city of Surprise in Arizona last summer.

Click the link below for more details:

http://sheffdocfest.com/films/show/5019

1000 Voices wins major award

2010-07-12T03:09:00.000-07:00

1000 Voices was awarded the Silver Dragon at Krakow film festival.

1000 Voices at DOCS DF

2010-07-11T02:45:00.000-07:00

1o00 Voices has been selected in the International Festival of Documentary, Mexico City, in October.

1000 Voices at Refuge in Film Festival

2010-05-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

1000 Voices has just been accepted for the Refuge in Film Festival 2010 at the London BFI in June. More info to follow...

Guardian Hay Literary Festival

2010-04-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

1000 Voices will be screening as part of this year's Guardian Hay Literature Festival on Thursday 3rd of June, at The Ritzy.

Krakowski Festiwal Filmowy

2010-04-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

1000 Voices will be in international competition at the 50th Krakow Film Festival this summer.

Bridging the Gap

2010-03-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

My latest project 'Surpriseville', has won funding through the Bridging the Gap program.

It will be shot in Arizona, USA in the coming months. Watch this space...

HOTDOCS 2010

2010-03-23T09:46:00.001-07:00

1000 Voices has been selected for the World Showcase at Hotdocs in Toronto, North America's biggest documentary festival. This is amazing news.

http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/1000_voices

It has also been selected for Warsaw Film festival and Norway International Documentary Festival.

Showreel 2010

2010-03-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Showreel 2010 from tim travers hawkins on Vimeo.

British Animation Awards & Festivals

2010-01-30T05:51:00.000-08:00

More great news.

1000 Voices has been shortlisted for a British Animation Award

http://www.britishanimationawards.com/

and selected for the international competion at Tampere http://www.tamperefilmfestival.fi/site/

and Montreal Human Rights Film Festival http://ffdpm.com/2009-2010/index_presentation.php.

DVD Cover

2010-01-11T02:14:00.001-08:00

WIP design for the DVD Cover.

1000 Voices Complete

2010-01-11T01:57:00.000-08:00

The full version of 1000 Voices is now available online to watch:

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Film Competition Winner: 1000 Voices from Ctrl.Alt.Shift on Vimeo.

1000 Voices won "Best Animation" at the STEPS International Rights Film Festival in Ukraine last month. In 2009 it was shortlisted for the Emerging Talent in Animation at Encounters, and part of the official selection for Raindance and Sheffield Docfest.

Lately I've been working in Portugal, editing the feature-length documentary that I shot in Colombia "Bathed by the Tiger" (see still below) with Red Desert www.red-desert.pt/ingles a production company set up by Pedro Neves who I met whilst studying at the EICTV in Cuba. I will post an update for this project in the next few days.

This year I've also been shortlisted for the "Bridging the Gap" scheme run by the Scottish Documentary Institute and will be up in Edinburgh to take part in that.

Production Update 07

2009-04-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

On Monday we had a shoot at Mount Pleasant Studios, Islington, with Tamsin Clarke who studied Physical Theatre for two years at the Lecoq School in Paris.

We then went on to the abandoned justice courts on Shoreditch High St. and got some takes in the abandoned cells there.

Production Update 06

2009-03-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

Here are the first images and storyboards from Anna.

Mood board

Storyboard

Voices from the Wilderness

2009-03-30T13:57:00.001-07:00

Last week we recorded interviews for the film with both current and ex-detainees.

On Monday we met 3 ex-detainees, Clifton, Reza and John at the Amplify offices in Shoreditch where we spent the day recording their testimony.

Clifton Cameron (above) is a Jamaican poet who wrote prolifically whilst in detention in Colnbrook and Dover IRCs. He is now writing books relating to his experiences as a youth worker in Birmingham.

His book of poetry 'Voices from the Wilderness' (below) can be found online. It's poetry for the people that talks about everyday life in a powerful way, with titles ranging from 'To Harry Redknapp and Portsmouth', 'Cricket Lovely Cricket', 'A Tribute to Lord Callaghan', 'Marcus Garvey' and 'Terror in London' to mention just a few.

I hope Clifton has been enjoying England's recent thrashing in the West Indies.

Production Update 05

2009-03-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Its been a very busy week. I've been recording testimony from detainees over the phone and editing it all in order to have a rough audio cut to give the animators so that they can begin to work properly.

Well, its done and sounding pretty good. Obviously its just a rough cut to guide the animation. Later we will begin reworking it in a studio, creating more layers and textures of sound to compliment the testimony.

Sound will be a really crucial element in this piece and we now have a sound designer, Jules MacDonald from Berwick Post Studio in Soho, and a composer, Jiri Slavik (jirislavik.com) who write the soundtrack for Oury Jalloh (www.ouryjalloh-derfilm.de). Its really exciting to have these two artists on board, the sound is going to make or break this piece and with them we are going to be able to create something powerful.

Now its on to the animation.

Iloobia has already been doing some amazing work on his sequences creating an atmospheric monochrome london cityscape with looming skyscrapers and ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Here is an extract from one of his storyboards:

We have a meeting with all the animators on Thursday. Lastly there is a documentary crew making a film about this production and the other 4 ctrl+alt+shift prize winners. I'll be giving them an interview on Friday.

Production Update 04

2009-03-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Colnbroock Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow where I met with two detainees who will be giving testimony for the project.

The first was from Gambia. He has been in detention for over a year.

The second was born in Iraq but has lived in the UK for 34 years. He became addicted to heroin and was arrested for dealing. After serving his sentence the immigration authorities decided that he should be deported to Iraq. He has been clean for 6 years. His greatest fear is becoming institutionalized. He doesn't know how he'll cope if he's released, let alone if he's deported to a country that he hasn't been to for over three decades.

Both will be giving testimony that will be recorded over the phone, since you are not even allowed to take a pencil and paper into Colnbrook IRC which operates like a high security prison.

Production Update 03

2009-03-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

We have confirmed another animator for the project. Duncan Brown aka Thorn Industries will be using an edgy 2D style with mixed media montage and drawing. Here are some examples of his powerful images.

Production Update 02

2009-03-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

We have arranged a session next Monday to record the words of 3 ex-detainees. They are:

Clifton Cameron- Jamaica

Clifton is a published poet who currently lives in Birmingham where he is working on his first novel. He was recently released after spending time in many different Immigration Removal Centres across the UK.

Max- Congo

Max is currently living in Chichester. He is writing a book about his experiences of leaving the Congo and coming to the UK only to be detained.

Reza- Iran

Reza was forced to leave Iran for his political views. He was in detention for almost 3 years in England. He now lives in London with his fiancee. He is an artist and some of his artwork will be used to inspire the animation.

flickr

2009-03-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Some of you might like to see my flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/bombasutra, it hasn't been updated for about a year, but if has some nice photos from past projects in Latin America.

Guardian Video: Underground Lives

2009-03-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

This video says it all:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/mar/16/asylum-seekers-refused-britain

Rant in A minor

2009-03-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

Detention

No state, anywhere, ever, should be given the power to keep people locked up for as long as it wants.

Indefinite detention is not there to keep us safe from 'dangerous or violent foreigners': Indefinite detention is a strategy used by the state to coerce people into returning to their countries because our own law says that they can't be forcefully returned because their countries are too dangerous.

For me this is not just a question of helping people in need, this is a question of rights. We cannot allow the machinery of the state to swallow people whole, nor should we allow our own values to only stretch as far as those who were born within our state territory. Think of the fuss we'd all make if a British citizen was locked up indefinitely in another country.

Internationalism

My personal politics is internationalist. My idea of a 'hero' is not a soldier who fights in Afghanistan and Iraq, but one of the thousands of British workers who went to fight with the anarchists and communists in Spain against the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s, whilst the British state, Churchill and our wonderful politicians were too cowardly to do a thing.

There is a myth around that anti-immigration sentiment comes from the working class. The working class were into internationalism (eg. in early 20th century Catalonia factory workers were given free Esperanto lessons by their unions) when all the aristocrats and bourgeoisie of europe were still fighting over which piece of a faraway land they could dig for gold in next.

Internationalism is about solidarity not about empires.

Its the Daily Mail and other rags owned by tory boys that stir up the bigot in us.

We shouldn't let our state crush people's lives, nor should we allow populist hacks from the Daily Mail to be directing discourse on Immigration Policy.

Production Update 01

2009-03-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hey kids. Apart from the fact that I am growing to really dislike the working title that I hastily chose for this project everything's going hunky dory.

Yesterday I had three really successful meetings:

2pm

Production Meeting with Andy Noble

Still loads to do but between us we're on top of it. Its moving fast and starting to take shape.

4pm

Meeting with 'Cinema Iloobia'

who will now be doing a big slab of the animation (check out iloobia.com for their showreel).

7pm

Chris at Shynola HQ in Hackney

(as neat and tidy as you'd imagine) before we headed to his local to go over the script and put the world of filmmaking to rights over a few pints of London Pride.

His gem of real wisdom to all filmmakers is... [section deleted]

To update those of you who haven't heard, I've spent the past few weeks rearranging my project after the powers that be backed down on the workshop that I had planned with detainees in Dover.

Because of this we are now using testimony from detainees in different IRC's across the UK that will be recorded over the phone. The good thing is that now HM's Prison Service have nothing to do with the project at all. No more brown-nosing, the gloves are off now your M.

You can read the new project summary and treatment as soon as I work out how to post files on this thing.