Amber Films

This first co-production between the GDR and Great Britain is intended to contribute to an understanding of the situation and attitudes of millions of working people in opposing social orders. Using the example of shipyard workers, fishermen, the brigade and family of a trade union active cook and unemployed person of various ages and professions in Newcastle on the one hand and a brigade of crane operators of the Warnowwerft and fishermen of the Warnemünde cooperative on the other hand, insights into the way of life and attitudes of people of our time are to be conveyed.

A meditation on a lost era and the regenerative power of the sea, Song For Billy grew out of the haunting photographs of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s photography project The Coal Coast. Tracing the scattered clues of England’s post-industrial northern coastline, with coal mining seams extending deep under the seabed, lead to stories embedded in the surreal landscape and the vivid re-enacting of the death of a young coal miner Billy, by his workmate. The story inspired the New York based percussion group So Percussion, who together with Amber created the film’s cathartic music.

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.

A magical realist feature drama exploring the lives of a women’s darts team on North Shields’ Meadow Well Estate.

A feature drama set in the declining fishing industry in North Shields, the film centres on the upheaval caused in a traditional fishing community by the unexpected arrival of a young woman.

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.

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…

Activities leading up to the launch of a large ship built at the Swan Hunter's Wallsend shipyard.

Tynesiders speak up - three talk to camera about their lives. Jim, a union activist; Betty, a housewife; and Arthur, a retired fish quay worker, talk about their daily struggles and their leisure time. The interviews are linked by a visual journey along the River Tyne.

Betty and her daughter Corinna are introduced to the harsh seacoaling way of life by Ray, an ex-seacoaler returning from a job with ICI. His offer of a caravan on a cliff top and promises of the Klondyke that awaits them at least seem preferable to the violent marriage she has left behind. The film sets Betty's struggle for survival against the wider struggles of the seacoaling community, surviving on the fringes of capitalism. Despite the exploitation by a local entrepreneur, run-ins with dole snoops and School Board men and the ever encroaching regulations of a hostile council, their lives retain a kind of anarchic romance, which is reflected in the film's lyrical style.

Portrait of Laurie Wheatley, a former plasterer with a life long interest in photography, drawing, painting and sculpture. Follows the production of his first ever life-size sculpture - a figure in plaster depicting a shipyard welder, and using the 'master-mould' process.

A documentation of the eponymous area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then under threat of redevelopment.

Set in the harness racing fraternity, this feature drama explores the conflict between urban and rural values and the relationship between an estranged father and son.

Combines footage of the 100th Durham Miner's Gala held in 1983, with extracts from a miners' weekend school held two months later, to raise the central issues that were of concern to the mineworkers' union during the lead up to the national strike of 1984.

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.

Feelings of fear and isolation felt by an elderly woman navigating the new urban environments that had increasingly replaced traditional working class communities in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Documentation of the 1984 Chesterfield by-election, which saw Tony Benn returned to parliament, and the early days of the Miners’ Strike which began shortly after.

The Jellyfish employs a variety of experimental approaches, combining stop-motion and pixilation techniques, freely mixing black and white photography of beach landscapes, objects and people – along with some drawings – to build a poetic, very textured montage, eliding the real and the surreal, the beautiful and the eerie, the spirited and the deadly. Figures and objects are isolated, linked together only by their presence on a beach, all exposed to direct or indirect threats. The different jellyfish are as much at threat – washing up dead, stranded in the desolate landscape – as they are a threat – appearing suddenly and making people vanish.

A documentary arising out of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s Byker Revisited portraits from the different communities that now live on the Byker Wall Estate.

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).