Amber Collective
2021T. Dan Smith: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Utopia
Amber Collective
T. Dan Smith, Dennis Skinner
An experimental mix of thriller and documentary exploring the scandal centred on the one-time Newcastle Council Leader, aka The Mouth of the Tyne, who was sentenced to six years imprisonment in 1974 for corruption. A dynamic and visionary politician, Smith collaborated closely as Amber unpicked the story of a leftwing group of ex-war resisters who took control of the city council in 1960, the socialist and civic ambitions and the betrayals; the claims of MI5 involvement, of ministerial cover-ups and the unseen role of the Privy Council. With Smith appearing as himself and filmmakers Murray Martin and Steve Trafford as two journalists, the film interrogates the interviews and archive footage, weaving them together with a fictional scandal unfolding on the streets around them…
T. Dan Smith: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Utopia
The Writing in the Sand
Amber Collective
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen
A richly lyrical documentary celebration of the vibrant beach life in the North East of England, constructed entirely out of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's black & white photographs.
The Writing in the Sand
Like Father
Amber Collective
Ned Kelly, Jonathon Dent
The last pits have closed, the redundancy money has been spent and a family is in crisis. 70 year old pigeon man Arthur Elliott is losing his allotment to the local authority’s coastal redevelopment scheme. Working as a trumpeter, teacher, club singer and club act agent, his son, 40 year old ex-miner Joe can just about scrape a living, but his marriage is breaking up. 10 year old Michael is left to grapple with his own realities as coalfield culture begins to disintegrate. Three generations struggle to come to terms with the past and find the ties that still bind them; three worlds unfold against the rich and extraordinary backdrop of East Durham.
Like Father
Vom Wir zum Ich
Amber Collective, Ellin Hare
Karl-Heinz Ruschau
In October 1987, the documentary film collective Amber Films from Newcastle became the first British film crew ever allowed to shoot in East Germany. They filmed the workers of the state-owned fishing concern in Warnemünde and a brigade of crane operators at the state Warnow dockyards. Just two years later, East Germany was history, including most of the jobs it once provided. Twenty-five years later, in 2014, the filmmakers returned to an utterly different Rostock. They visited the people they had filmed in 1987. Together, documentarians and subjects look at excerpts from the earlier film, and talk about the enormous changes the men and women experienced, how they dealt with them, and how they feel today.
From Us to Me
The Scar
Amber Collective
Charlie Hardwick, Bill Speed
Like many women active during the miners' strike, May Murton (Charlie Hardwick) has been left to clean up the mess. The closure of the pit, a failed marriage and the community’s disintegration have shattered both her personal and political beliefs. Her teenage children (Darren Bell and Katja Roberts) are out of control. Her estranged husband (Brian Hogg) has taken up residence in the allotments. At a dance, the night before the Durham Miners’ Gala, May meets Roy Cotton (Bill Speed) the recently arrived manager of an open cast mine.
The Scar
Byker
Amber Collective, Sirka-Liisa Konttinen
A partly dramatised documentary built around Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s photographs of the Newcastle terraced community, demolished to make way for the Byker Wall. Konttinen, a founder member of the Amber collective moved to Byker when the group came to NE England in 1969. She lived there until 1976, when her own flat was demolished. The film reconstructed some of the contexts, which had already gone, creating a celebration of traditional working class culture that has been widely shown to community and general audiences, as well as in planning and architecture forums. Together with Keeping Time, the film was one of Amber’s early photo films. Others created around Konttinen’s photographs include The Writing in the Sand (1991), Letters to Katja (1994), Today I’m With You (2010) and Song for Billy (2016).
Byker
