Mouth to Mouth

“Trusting other people will put your
ass in jeopardy every time.”

How Sherry loses her virginity, her illusions and her lip ring in a road trip across Europe. Sherry is searching for a place to belong where she can still be herself. She thinks she has found this in SPARK – Street People Armed with Radical Knowledge. She takes off in SPARK’s camper van as they cross Europe recruiting a membership of the down and out. They arrive at a disused vineyard in Portugal that will be their paradise.Harry, the group’s leader, begins harvesting ripe grapes and ready minds through his own methods of hard work and punishment. The stakes are high within this volatile group. Two deaths ensure the submission of most of the recruits – but not Sherry, or the apparently craziest street person, Mad Ax.

Mad Ax is the least taken in by SPARK’s rhetoric. He is also in love with Sherry. Into this Shangri-la comes Sherry’s mother. Failing to persuade Sherry to leave, she decides that SPARK has more to offer than single parenthood in London. Disillusionment complete, Sherry stands up for what she knows is right, denounces SPARK, and escapes with Mad Ax into the unknown.

Train on the Brain

In what’s been called ‘The definitive train hopping doc’, filmmaker Alison Murray drops out of the rat race, grabs a camera, and hits the rails with some punk kids on a trans-continental freight train hopping adventure. On their odyssey they encounter a cast of hobos and runaways, scallywags and castaways. Amidst run-ins with the law, and surviving the perils of the elements, Alison weaves her narrative film over beautifully shot 8mm film and digital video with an old-time sounding soundtrack by Beck. 

Train On The Brain was originally produced for Channel 4 in the UK by Hellhound and MJW Productions.

Watch the full length film here.

CARNY

 “An intimate, gritty and poetic adventure following the lives of carnies – traveling fairground workers who have abandoned the security of the “real world” for the refuge and variety of the road. Through the eyes of Hairy, the charismatic lesbian cotton-candy seller, we see a world of unlikely Romeos, easy love and fierce friendships that obscure personal hardship and troubled pasts. Often from an underclass that has few options, the carnies struggle with addiction, loneliness, poverty and shattered dreams, finding solace only in the company of their own, who accept them as they are. Some have worked the fairs for more than 50 years, some were born or escaped into it, but all are gripped by the romance of the bright midway lights, lyrically captured captured by director Alison Murray (Mouth to Mouth) in lush interludes of Kodachrome Super 8.” ~ Gisèle Gordon, Hot Docs) 

A collaboration with photographer Virginia Lee Hunter, based on her book – Carny, Americana on the Midway.

Watch the full movie here.

Caprichosos de San Telmo

A portrait of the working class musicians and dancers of Buenos Aires’ San Telmo neighbourhood, who have channeled the city’s many cultural influences into the street performance called murga.

Every year, a taxi driver named Pichi (Hector Roterio) assembles a group of locals to train for the annual parade. At first glance, they don’t look promising. Sergio has clearly led a hard life and has already lost some of his teeth, but turns out to be a surprisingly fluid dancer. Maria Eva tries to hold down an entry-level job, but she comes alive teaching murga moves to the new girls. Under her watchful eye, they practice the murga’s bigbeat rhythms and its accompanying steps. Murga is a remnant of Argentina’s former African communities, but is now practiced by anyone in the neighborhood who can surrender to its pull.

Watch the full length film here.