
Editing
Giles Gardner is a British documentary film maker, editor and writer, based in Paris. In 2022 he co-directed 'A Cooler Climate' with James Ivory which premiered at the 60th New York Film Festival and had a theatrical release in France under the title 'Un Été Afghan’. Recent editing credits include: 'Farming The Revolution' by Nishtha Jain (Hotdocs winner 2024); 'King of Kings' by Harriet Marin Jones (Chicago Film Festival winner 2023); 'Winnie' by Pascale Lamche (Sundance best International Documentary Prize winner 2017); 'A Thousand Girls Like Me' by Sahra Mani (Winner of over 25 International awards); 'Inna de Yard' by Peter Webber (Tribeca Film Festival). He regularly participates as a mentor for CloseUp Initiative and Doc Incubator.

When filmmaker Mari Soppela took her children and husband to live for a year on a sacred mountain in her native Finland, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream to share the arctic wilderness of her childhood with her family. But when years later her children turn the camera onto her, she is forced to confront her motivation for filming their lives in this searching and searingly honest cinematic exploration of identity, belonging and motherhood. Filmed over the course of 27 years, Mother Land challenges us all to examine the landscapes we carry within us and the narratives we create to make sense of our lives.

In 1982, when the Russian invasion of Afghanistan was at its peak, more than 1.5 million inhabitants had to move to Iran looking for a new life. Taghi, born in Iran, wants to escape the ruthless discriminations Afghans are subjected to on a daily basis. Against all odds, he decides to move back to the country of his parents. But unexpected challenges await there for him.

In 1960, acclaimed filmmaker James Ivory traveled to Afghanistan to shoot scenes for a documentary that was never completed. In 2022, he decided to revisit this unique footage, which takes him back to his adventurous youth.

While her husband served a life sentence, paradoxically kept safe and morally uncontaminated, Winnie Mandela rode the raw violence of apartheid, fighting on the front line and underground. This is the untold story of the mysterious forces that combined to take her down, labeling him a saint, her, a sinner.

In 1930s Shanghai, 'The White Countess' is both Sofia, a fallen member of the exiled Russian aristocracy, and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.

Immortality and eternal life: Will this great human dream come true? In any case, cryonics is making ever greater progress, human cloning no longer seems impossible and research is being carried out into the digital reproduction of the brain. Taking stock in the USA, Canada, Europe and Russia. The documentary delves into a world in which all-too-human people refuse to simply be wiped out by death. It shows how difficult it is to resist the promises of eternal life and also highlights the economic interests behind such endeavors. Google's push is just one sign of a possible two-tier society of the future: on the one hand, the rich who have access to such "offers", on the other, the rest of society.

A gay young man is recruited into an illicit love triangle to watch a much older man’s sexual liaison, but ends up witnessing what turns out to be his murder. The next day the young man's opera diva mother informs him that his estranged father has been in Paris... until the previous night when he was murdered. Seeking help with a psychiatrist, the young man comes across an eccentric actress who has come totally unhinged by the death of that psychiatrist, the infamous Docteur Rey. At first mistaking her for the doctor, the young man embarks on a madcap mystery, reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel, with Paris as the backdrop.

The untold story of the other boss of Chicago, the King of Policy Kings, a man who held too much power and wealth during segregation.

An Arthurian legend of young Prince Valiant, son of the King of Scandia. After the King is exiled by an evil leader, the Prince travels to Camelot to secure the aid of King Arthur in helping restore his family to power and prevent a plot by the Black Knight.

When Khatera, a 23-year-old Afghan woman, forces her father to stand trial after a lifetime of sexual abuse, she risks her family, freedom, and personal safety to expose a judicial system that incriminates the very women who seek protection.
