Todd Austin

Being Kae Tempest

Poet, rapper, playwright and recording artist Kae Tempest is one of the most viscerally exciting artists working in Britain today. They are the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious Ted Hughes prize and have been nominated for both the Brit and Mercury music awards. Tempest has always found support and respect within the queer art scenes, a place close to their heart. In July 2020, they came out as non-binary, announcing that they would publish and perform under the name Kae. This film delves deep into their creative process and gains rare, intimate insights into Kae’s life throughout a period of profound personal and artistic change.

John Lee Hooker: The Boogie Man

John Lee Hooker was one of the greatest bluesmen of the 20th century. Born into poverty and racial segregation, he lived through a monumental time in American history. This is the story of a cultural icon, and his far-reaching impact on popular music, told in his own words and those of his family and closest collaborators. Interviews with Keith Richards, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray tell how an illiterate man from the rural and impoverished backwaters of the Mississippi Delta influenced their own musical journey. We reveal his part in bringing the Blues to a new generation of young British musicians and how, in turn, those musicians introduced young, mainstream Americans to their own cultural heritage.

Matthew Bourne's Christmas

This new Christmas ballet film was conceived by Matthew Bourne and directed by his long standing film collaborator Ross MacGibbon. The film celebrates Bourne's power to imaginatively transform ballet, taking dance and dancers off the stage into studio, bringing together projections, animation, and an intimate shooting style to produce a distinctive new way of presenting dance on screen. Those who know Bourne's stage work will spot extracts from many of his biggest hits (including Swan Lake, Edward Scissorhands, and Nutcracker!), but for audiences less familiar with his work this is simply a journey through a series of magical worlds where stories are told through dance.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The True Story

This iconic American story was written in 1900 by L Frank Baum, a Chicago businessman, journalist, chicken breeder, actor, boutique owner, Hollywood movie director and lifelong fan of all things innovative and technological. His life spanned an era of remarkable invention and achievement in America and many of these developments helped to fuel this great storyteller's imagination. His ambition was to create the first genuine American fairytale and the story continues to fascinate, inspire and engage millions of fans of all ages from all over the world. This documentary explores how The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has come to symbolise the American Dream and includes previously unseen footage from the Baum family archives, still photographs and clips from the early Oz films, as well as interviews with family members, literary experts and American historians as it tells the story of one man's life in parallel to the development of modern America.