Witness one of modern football’s extraordinary stories with access from inside the boardroom, changing room and sidelines. The camera records meetings, telephone conversations, matches and private chats that reveal the turbulent and dramatic developments in four seasons at QPR.

The Four Year Plan culminates in an extraordinary, nail biting finale and goes where no football film has gone before.

Watch Trailer (Vimeo link)

The Four Year Plan

Festivals and Awards

Winner: Best Documentary, Marbella Film Festival 2011

Official Selection: IDFA 2011

Reviews

“Superb! The film that will shock football. The real star is Briatore who dominates the film like Tony Soprano, ready to terminate the employment of another hapless manager.”
- The Independent

“An absolute must-see”
- Daily Mail

“A brilliant fly-on-the-wall documentary”
- The Sunday Times

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title:

- Battle for Brooklyn
- Bill Cunningham New York
- Buck
- Hell and Back Again
- If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
- Jane’s Journey
- The Loving Story
- Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
- Pina
- Project Nim
- Semper Fi: Always Faithful
- Sing Your Song
- Undefeated
- Under Fire: Journalists in Combat
- We Were Here

Under Fire features haunting revelations from eight war correspondents and photographers, most memorably Paul Watson, talking about the personal cost of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo he took in 1993 that changed the course of U.S. involvement in Africa.

The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. The awards ceremony is scheduled for February 26.

Read more: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science

War journalism has become an increasingly lethal endeavor. Not only are correspondents viewed as targets, they are often subject to kidnappings, torture and even beheadings.

Under Fire weaves together portraits of these journalists and photographers; those who have survived physically, but have succumbed emotionally to what they have witnessed.

Inspired by the work of Dr Anthony Feinstein, the psychiatrist who has been on retainer to many of the world’s major news networks and publications, Under Fire looks at the psychological cost of war as seen through the eyes of combat journalists whose stories make up this powerful and unique film.

*Available in HD

Festivals and Awards

Oscar Shortlisted: Best Documentary Feature, Academy Awards 2012

Reviews

“Reckons with its subject in straightforward but engrossingly tough-minded fashion. Polished talking-heads approach is punctuated by firsthand combat clips.”
- Variety

“Drives home the traumatic nature of the gig - how it creates adrenaline junkies, ruins personal relationships and often leads to crippling PTSD…..their firsthand accounts and the feelings they engendered are brutally vivid”
- L.A Times

“Fascinating and often devastating”
- L.A Weekly

“One of the year’s best documentaries, is devastating yet deeply insightful”
- Popzara

“Skillfully crafted and profoundly poignant”
- L.A Splash

Distributor Mercury Media is gearing up to take an “unprecedented” slate to the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, including a film on Queens Park Rangers’ turbulent rise to the Premier League.

Ad Hoc Films’ The Four Year Plan goes behind the scenes of the football club to reveal the turmoil in its boardroom, which was presided over by Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone when it was battling for promotion in the Championship. Current owner and one of the richest men in Britain Lakshmi Mittal will also appear.

Mercury’s other films include Salaam Dunk, which follows the newly formed ethnically diverse women’s basketball team at the American University of Iraq, and The Betrayal a personal film about Karen Winther’s involvement with extremist groups in Oslo in the 1990s.

It will also present Australian Oscar nominated film Mrs Carey’s Concert, about school music director Karen Carey who puts on a concert at the Sydney Opera House every two years. It is directed by Bob Connolly and Sophie Raymond.

Mercury chief executive Tim Sparke said: “Mercury’s line up at IDFA is unprecedented in our history. It is a testament to the quality of our catalogue.”

Believing in the transformative power of music, Carey insists upon a classical repertoire. She sets a dauntingly high performance standard and requires the participation of every girl in the school. Carey inspires many of her girls, but some do not share her passion and are not afraid to say so.

Mrs Carey pushes her young charges to the edge of breaking point, and yet the journeys these young musicians make from teenage shyness to virtuoso display is both captivating and unexpected.

Mrs Carey’s Concert is about music-making and coming of age, about talent and courage, compliance and rebellion. Ultimately it is about what is possible when you strive rather than taking the easy way out.

Mrs Carey’s Concert is the 2nd highest grossing documentary in Australian box office history - grossing over $1 million during its theatrical run.

Available in HD

Visit the official website

Festivals and Awards

Winner

Best Documentary, AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards, 2011
Best Direction in a Documentary Feature, AACTA Awards, 2011
Best Documentary (History & Culture), Guangzhou Intl Documentary Film Festival, 2011

Official Selection

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011
Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011
Documentary Edge Film Festival 2011
IDFA 2011

Reviews

“A glorious hymn to music and education… a riveting drama”
Variety

“Engaging… It’s impossible not to be deeply involved in Emily’s butterfly-like arrival from her adolescent cocoon.”
Screen International

“Lovely… An exceptionally revealing film about the transformative power of music.”
ABC Classic FM

“Richly anecdotal and consistently enthralling… well worth every exhilarating minute.”
Sydney Morning Herald

“A perfectly pitched and inspirational film to be enjoyed by the whole family.”
ABC Online

Set against a backdrop of high stakes activism, global politics and human rights advocacy, Bhopali presents a modern portrait of shattered lives and explores the victims’ ongoing fight for justice and corporate responsibility.

*Available in HD

Festivals and Awards

Winner
Best Documentary, Slamdance Film Festival 2011
Audience Award, Slamdance Film Festival 2011
Grand Jury Award, San Francisco United Film Festival 2011
Best Documentary Special Jury Award, Beverly Hills Film Festival 2011
Best Documentary, NY Indian Film Festival 2011

Official Selection
IDFA 2011
Dallas International Film Festival 2011
Newport Beach Film Festival 2011

Reviews

“Intimate… Heart-wrenching… impressively polished.”
- Variety

“One of the most compelling documentaries I’ve seen in a very long time”
- Joshua Brunsting, Gordonandthewhale.com

This is an investigation and a celebration - about the links between diet and disease, the food industry and the environment, and the incredible food that the film claims can solve it all.

Together with a cast of pioneering chefs, specialising in vegan fine-dining, scientists and doctors argue it is time for the West to re-examine its love affair with meat and dairy.

Visit the official website

Reviews

“Utterly compelling”
- Empire

“Punchy and inspirational”
- Total Film

“Compelling scientific evidence”
- Time Out

“Earth shattering”
- The Times

Planeat has been shown in cinemas in over 90 cities across the US. In the UK, Planeat has been screened in Parliament to MPs by the Shadow Minister of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Mercury sells Kissinger worldwide; set for UK broadcast premiere on More 4

UK factual distributor Mercury Media has sold a feature-length documentary about Henry Kissinger around the world.

Kissinger, the profile of the former US secretary of state and advocate of realpolitik cost US$1.2m to make and was produced by Chimerica Media for National Geographic.

In Europe, the programme will be aired on TVI in Portugal, Norway’s NRK and ERR in Estonia. Elsewhere, SBS in Australia, Phoenix in China, Noga in Israel and Dubai-based Al Arabiya have also picked it up.

The UK’s Channel 4 previously picked up the programme for its diginet More 4 and will air it this week as part of its True Stories strand.

In the two-hour programme, historian Niall Ferguson was given exclusive access to Kissinger for in-depth conversations, which are combined with archive footage in the programme.

Read more: C21 Media

Forsaking easy explanations of greedy bankers and incompetent regulators, this investigation goes to the root causes of the USA’s and UK’s deluded belief that everyone could be rich and property prices would rise forever.

The Flaw, which premiered at Sundance 2011, features Democrat Henry Waxman skewering the dithering Alan Greenspan in front of a House committee. Unchecked capitalism, the growing inequality of incomes, the gap between the super-rich and the rest - and even sheer stupidity, are laid bare as major factors.

The question arising - why are the perpetrators of the mess now entrusted with the lucrative task of clearing it up?

*Available in HD

Visit the official website

Festivals and Awards

Official Selection
Sundance Film Festival 2011
Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011

Reviews

“Going out of its way to make economic theory and practice digestible to lay audiences.”
Variety

““Smart and entertaining documentary… Sington has cleverly taken complex, often abstract concepts and made them accessible.”
The Hollywood Reporter