Producer and Director John Edginton praised Ofcom’s decision. “It is a victory for the rights of women like Miriam , who have been denied a divorce and are largely voiceless, to be heard, rather than coerced into silence”.

Read the Jewish Chronicle report of the decision here

If you are in the UK watch the film on Channel 4 On Demand,

http://www.channel4.com/

In 2010 Divorce Jewish Style was an official entry at JewishEye, the World Jewish Film Festival in Israel and Jewish Motifs International Film Festival, Warsaw.

With excerpts from our 1996 film, “Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt”, the new film brings up new evidence demonstrating the flawed nature of the prosecution’s case against Mumia.

Click here for the trailer

Legendary singer-songwriter and former Soft Boys front man , Robyn Hitchcock , is the subject and star of this concert documentary. In the winter of 2008 , Hitchcock travelled with his band by train to New York to resurrect live in concert his 1984 album ‘I Often Dream of Trains’ , which has grown into a cult classic.

Reviews

Director John Edginton captures the true essence of Robyn in concert, and retains his crazy and slightly inane banter between songs – which can sometimes prove to be even more surreal than the lyrics themselves, and help make this a veritable joy to behold.

London Raindance Film Festival

Awards

Winner Best Original Score – Los Angeles Reel Film Festival

Available from

Yeproc Records: http://store.yeproc.com/

External links

Listen and Buy DVD/CD: www.robynhitchcock.com

In the summer of 2006, Robyn Hitchcock recorded a group of new songs in his London house , with help from famous musician friends, including REM’s lead guitarist Peter Buck, legendary songwriter Nick Lowe and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. This documentary eavesdrops on Hitchcock at work as he adds to his stockpile of dark ,witty and surreal rock songs and explores with contributors including Gillian Welch and David Rawlings what makes Hitchcock’s songs so memorable. The film culminates with the band taking the songs on the road in America.

Premiered at SXSW festival, Austin Texas, 2007.

Shown on the Sundance Channel in the US and BBC4 in the UK.

Reviews

Great documentary following the idiosyncratic singer as he records his latest album at home with a couple of friends. A film that’s confident enough to sit back and let this corner of the rock world unfold at its own pace, much as Hitchcock’s 30-odd year career has done.

The Guardian

Available from

DVDs: Amazon

On CD: www.sartorialrecords

External links

Listen and Buy DVD/CD: http://www.robynhitchcock.com/

“The death of Syd Barrett in 2006 was tragic, not only because he was a pop genius, but also because he lived in mystery since his self-imposed banishment from public life in the early ‘70s. This exceptional film, directed by John Edginton, gathers rare early concert footage, home movies, early TV appearances, chats with friends, lovers, managers, and admirers (including primary heir apparent to the Syd throne, Robyn Hitchcock), and new interviews with all four surviving members of Pink Floyd. All this provides an expansive look at this most misunderstood and mythical figure in rock iconography. A bonus disc features unedited interview feeds with Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason, as well as great acoustic performances of Syd songs by Hitchcock and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, making this as indispensable as The Wall itself.”

www.popmatters.com

The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story tells the Barrett story in the words of those who knew him and those who admired him, but the man himself is missing. This is a natural and necessary omission as Barrett was rarely photographed, let alone heard from, in forty years.

Reviews

Newly enhanced DVD reveals how the Barrett legacy looms large over the band that left him behind…the film includes a treasure trove of footage from the relatively well known to the impossibly rare.

Mojo Magazine

Finally the Pink Floyd story as it should be told…a moving and thoughtful documentary.

Rough Guide to Pink Floyd

Wikipedia: Click here to read the wiki entry

Available from

DVDs : Amazon

From Docurama.com: “This Award-winning explosive film reopens the case of America’s most “celebrated” death row inmate, exposing a broken justice system that has confined Mumia Abu-Jamal to prison for over 25 years.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, now 54-years-old, was a journalist, Black Panther activist, and cab driver prior to his arrest for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. His case has received international attention and supporters have rallied behind him in their persistent quest for justice.

The documentary pieces together various accounts from the night of the murder (December 9, 1981) and uses testimony from the prosecutor in the 1982 trial, Joseph McGill, and his defense counsel, Anthony E. Jackson. Edginton’s film spends time with many of the witnesses, too, and reveals a pattern of police coercion, especially in the case of Veronica Jones and Cynthia White.

As years have passed and Mumia remains in prison, innumerable pieces of evidence have come forward in the case to shed light on what may have actually happened on that night. The 1982 trial is generally seen by supporters to be steeped in police corruption and it’s hard to argue that point after seeing Edginton’s film.”

Read more: http://blogcritics.org

Reviews

“Brilliant and fast-paced”

Washington Post

“This film is a powerful statement about the state of democracy in North America today”

Alice Walker, Author, The Color Purple

Awards

Winner Best Documentary

Critics Prize

Best Film

Mumbai International Film Festival 1998

Winner Golden Apple Award

US Cable Ace nomination 1997, Best Documentary

Available from

DVD US: click here for newly released DVD featuring Never Before Seen Extended Prison Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal

UK DVD: from Amazon

SkyArts tv channel in the UK and Ireland is screening this 90 minute feast of vintage Hitchcock at regular intervals.

Directed and produced by John Edginton for the Sundance Channel and Yeproc Records.                                                                Watch the listings to catch the next showing.

The documentary is also now available on DVD and CD.

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Director John Edginton and artist Robyn Hitchcock do Festival Q&A in Chicago

The Chicago International Music and Film Festival (CIMMFEST) hosted a screening  of our film “Robyn Hitchcock : I Often Dream of Trains – a concert film” at the renowned music venue Schubas. The screening was followed by a Q&A with John and Robyn which was filmed by videographer Dan Page and can be watched in 3 parts on Youtube here

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

Click here for Part 3

Guaranteed more laughs than your average Q&A…and some insights too !

Robyn then followed with a fantastic sold-out 2 hour live performance .
John Edginton – new interview

John was interviewed for a feature to go on the Uk music website www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk

_____________________________________________________________________________

Monty Python Almost the Truth: The Lawyer’s Cut receives two Emmy nominations for the 2010 Emmy awards !

The six-part documentary series was made by Bill and Ben Productions for IFC and the BBC.

John Edginton was the series production consultant

I was shocked to get a phone call in June that my friend Ray Frawley ,the film editor, had died of cancer. He had just reached his 60th birthday.

Ray was the guiding hand behind the majority of my documentaries from 1991 until 2005. He was far too self-effacing to have ever considered himself an artist. But take it from me, Ray was the real thing. More than just a craftsman. He had an uncanny intuition. At times he could unlock the secrets of a film sequence and reveal through his cutting something that was not even discernible from viewing the rushes.

From the very first – a film for the BBC 40 Minutes strand – I realised that I was in very confident and sure hands. Some editors are frustrated directors who settle for editing as a second-best. Ray was not one of them. He was born to be an editor. And the fact that he worked with so many talented documentary directors –

John-Paul Davidson, Mike Dibb, Susanna White, Philippa Walker, Molly Dineen, Gerry Pomeroy – to name but a few- is a testament to Ray’s reputation
.

Not that the status of any particular director or producer made a blind bit of difference to Ray. He had no ego at all and he was not the least bit impressed by anyone else’s. The only thing that counted with Ray was the quality of the film footage you brought in the door. Ray viewed great rushes with the relish of a chef savouring the freshest ingredients before combining them into a succulent dish !

I came to trust Ray’s instincts for finding the core structure within the mass of footage that I brought to the cutting room. He probably never said it explicitly because he was not one to pontificate, but his basic philosophy of editing was that you will find your film by keeping the best footage and leaving everything else out.

Sounds simple doesn’t it , but it was actually very challenging for a director who inevitably comes from a shoot with favourite sequences in his head. When Ray watched the raw footage and smiled ,or better still chuckled ,you knew that this was a piece to keep. But inevitably sometimes he would shake his head and look uncomfortable after viewing footage that I had great expectations of. I would probably look wounded and try and get his sympathy, but Ray’s huge fund of personal generosity did not extend to indulging a director when he knew the hard truth had to be faced! Even if I won a reprieve in the first round, I probably always knew that Ray was right and in later cuts the offending sequence would inevitably be removed.

Ray was a master problem solver and a genius at finding a structure out of disparate elements. On more than one occasion he was approached by a despairing director in mid-edit with a different editor, pleading with Ray to take the job on and apply his forensic skills to finding the shape of the film.

When we came to put together my 2001 film for BBC’s Omnibus , “Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond” , Ray and I decided to do away with any notion of a pre-ordained structure or paper edit. We would just look at the footage and then start on Day One with what felt right. Cutting together three or four minutes a day, never looking back, on a tight deadline with a transmission date only a few weeks away, we knew that if this first roughcut did not hang together we would be in big trouble.

At each stage we asked each other that question “what feels right now”? Sometimes it might take a couple of pints of Guinness in our nearby second home, the Blue Post, to agree on the next step and excitedly dash back to Ray’s Avid (after 1995, before that he was cutting 16mm film) to structure the vision.

It was a fantastic roller-coaster ride as we charged towards the finish. Result: a 70 minute roughcut that flowed effortlessly and was so tightly structured that the Omnibus exec tried desperately to get us a 70 minute slot. Alas ,we had to settle for the allotted 50 minutes in the end, which meant an agonizingly painful forensic job to pare the film down.

In addition, Ray’s great talent for editing sequences to music really came to the fore with this film. He was at the absolute peak of his game. And enthusiastic audiences at music film festivals still appreciate Ray’s work on the film, now retitled “The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story”.

“Parachutist!” was Ray’s disparaging word for a character brought into a film, often as an “expert” or for political reasons to appease an exec producer, but whose appearance jarred with the flow of the film’s approach. Try dropping an expert into an observational sequence and you get the idea!

As soon as he used the P word you knew he was right! He taught me the invaluable lesson to identify a potential “Parachutist” at an earlier stage and not include them in the shooting schedule. One of many lessons Ray taught me. Now I hear his voice in my head at the first signs of danger. “Parachutist!” Thanks Ray.

I just spoke with director Mike Dibb, wondering what it was , this quality that we all valued so much about Ray’s abilities . Mike put it most succinctly : “Ray had this mysterious intuitive talent. A complete sense of what it’s about. If he told you it wasn’t working you knew he was right ,without him ever having to articulate why. I’ve never met anybody whose editing was so intuitive.”

We both agreed that’s not something you can ever teach anyone. And it’s why , right now , Ray the editor seems so irreplaceable. Of course , it’s even more painful to have lost Ray the warm and generous friend .

Ray edited the following films, directed by John Edginton

* 40 Minutes : When the Canaries Stop Singing . BBC. (1991)
* Fragile Earth : Battle for the Trees . Ch 4 (1992)
* Horizon : Hearing Voices . BBC (1995)
* Mumia Abu-Jamal : A Case for Reasonable Doubt? HBO (USA) (1996)
* Witness : Death of a Sister . Ch4 (1997)
* Murder at Fort Devens . Arts and Entertainment Channel. (USA) (1998)
* Omnibus : Syd Barrett – Crazy Diamond .BBC. (2001)
* Cutting Edge : Danger ! Surgeon at Work . Ch4 (2002)
* Jewish Law . A Series . Ch4 (2004)

Other documentaries edited by Ray Frawley

Director Mike Dibb Open the Box : Sheer Filth. C4

Director John Paul Davidson: Great Railway Journeys : Guantanamo to Pinar Del Rio. BBC Under the Sun : The Cat and the Mouse .BBC Under the Sun : The Boys from Brazil ..BBC

Director Susanna White : Cutting Edge : Volvo City .C4 Readers’ Wives . C4. Get Lucan

Dir Philippa Walker : Witness : We Don’t Go to School .C4 Miss World 1970: Feminists and Flourbombs Omnibus : Stars and Mas . BBC Bookmark :John Cheever .BBC

Director Kate Meynall : Arena : Keith Waterhouse – Staring Up at the Ceiling. BBC

Director Molly Dineen Cutting Edge : The Pick , the Shovel and Open Road. C4

Director Gerry Pomeroy :
Nomad in New York .
Male Rape .
A Bloody Art .
Great Britons: Shakespeare.
Trail of Guilt: Machinegun Mitchell.
Runaways.
Rapists: The Day of Reckoning. (All for the BBC)\

Director Melissa Llewllyn-Davies

Under the Sun :Forgiving the Blood. BBC Fine Cut : Memories and Dreams . BBC

Director Lucy Sandys-Wynch For Richer For Poorer . C4

Dir John Smithson : Witness : Children of God . C4

(With many thanks to Sara Bhaskaran, Ray’s invaluable assistant film editor, who assisted Ray on the majority of these films and hunted down her cv to compile this list . We may have missed some films off the list. Let us know!)

More Ray titles added!

James Moseley worked as Ray’s assistant film editor on most of his films from 1984-90.

James has sent me this list of titles from that period.

Joe Arroyo: Rhythms of the World. Frank Hanley and Tim May. BBC2
Irakere: Rhythms of the World. BBC2
Los Van Van: Rhythms of the World. BBC2
Heavy Metal Heaven. Arena. Helen Gallagher. BBC2
Psychic Tearooms: Inside Story. Philippa Walker. BBC1
Four Days of Summer: Under the Sun. BBC2
Kerouac: Arena. Kate Meynall. BBC2
Invisible Ink: Arena. Udayan Prasad. BBC2
Grand Illusions:  Philippa Walker. C4
The Queen of Soul – Aretha Franklin: Omnibus. Cathe Neukum. BBC1
Workers State: Struggles for Poland. Dai Vaughan. C4
Occupation: Struggles for Poland. Dai Vaughan. C4
The Hammer and the Cross: Everyman. John Paul Davidson BBC1
In Between Days: Forty Minutes. Ted Clisby BBC2
Shadow: Albert Bailey. Khazil Productions.
Tribute to Henry Moore: Omnibus. BBC1
More Lives Than One: Play For Today. BBC1

Is that French author expecting to give his books away without any payment ? Making documentary films is a massively fragile undertaking. Most of us lurch from project to project with bank managers biting at our heels . And income from DVD sales and screenings can be a lifeline to getting new films off the ground.

* So is this Blog just going to be a load of intemperate grousing ? …well I reckon filmmaking is 80% about money and only 20% about creating something…so I’m afraid you may have to get used to the grousing, dear reader.
Talking of books about Syd, with “Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head” (Faber)

Uk music journalist Rob Chapman has produced the best one yet in my opinion.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is Sean O’Hagen in the Observer :

“A Very Irregular Head is a consistently illuminating, and often surprising, read….Syd is a looming presence here, an elusive to the point of spectral figure, who haunts the pages of this, the best book yet about him. It sent me back to the music, to songs such as “Dark Globe” with its almost unbearably plaintive final refrain: “Won’t you miss me, wouldn’t you miss me at all?” In the grain of Syd Barrett’s intensely troubled voice, you can hear the darkness descending and his terrible awareness of the same. It is the sound of a man not shining like a diamond, but sinking like a stone.”

In fact the reviewers are at one in rating the book head and shoulders above any previous attempts.

Rob gives me a very generous acknowledgement “for access to to the full tape transcripts of his interviews with Messrs Gilmour, Mason, Waters and Wright.” And I am delighted that I was able to help, because although this is the first book where the writer was given cooperation by the Barrett family, none of the band themselves agreed to be interviewed.
A DILEMMA
..and this could be the first of many dilemmas..

The DVD : “The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story” in the UK and Europe can be bought on Amazon and a lot of other sites out there for as little as £2.49 (though a few for some unfathomable reason are as much as £39.95 too).. There’s just one catch – none of the money from sales will come back to us, the production company. The reason is the DVD distributor went into liquidation over two years ago..but the copies are out there and they will sell on..and on.. until they are all sold out…

The money goes to the sellers and apparently there is no mechanism for us to get hold of any of it.

There’s no way of knowing how many it will take before they are all gone because we have no way of getting access to the records of the bankrupt company – if they actually kept any.

Ok . So what’s the dilemma ? It’s this .Do we put a link to Amazon Uk,etc on this site to encourage people to buy those cheap copies? Well it gets to be a pretty tortuous argument, but yes I actually think we should. The reason : until those copies are sold, burned off from the marketplace, it makes no economic sense to produce a new DVD through a new distributor. It would compete at a huge disadvantage with the low-priced copies that are already out there.

I would love to produce an updated version of the film as it was made five years before Syd’s death in 2006. There is a new distribution company in the wings. But we do need to get rid of those existing copies out there first ! So go for it…buy them in bulk for your friends too!

http://www.amazon.co.uk

“On April 4, 1968, America’s most popular and effective leader of the civil rights movement was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The probing documentary, Who Killed Martin Luther King? investigates the evidence surrounding King’s murder and examines the possibility that convicted assassin James Earl Ray did not shoot the 39-year-old activist. Film highlights include controversial and compelling interviews with Ray and other key individuals in the famous case. This documentary was released in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of King’s death. “

All Movie Guide

Reviews

“One of the most important subjects of the 20th century. This film is a powerful, no-holds barred look at who really killed Martin Luther King – an issue as relevant today as it was 40 years ago. This is an intensely detailed, exhaustively researched and artfully rendered film that should be required watching for anyone who wants to see what real documentary filmmaking is.”

Amazon customer

Awards

International Emmy Award – Nomination

Winner US Cable Ace award, Best International Documentary

Available from

DVD: Amazon