Exploring lived experiences through documentary film

Prof Ayisi’s research is framed around diverse ideas related to post-colonial discourse, representation, feminism, transnational and African cinema, spectatorship, and ethnographic film.

Her documentary series for the AHRC-funded Co-POWeR project includes Plant Power (2023), Belonging: Tiger Bay Boxing Club (2024) and A Beacon of Resilience: St Joseph Boxing Club (2025). Together, these outputs reimagine social transformation through films co-produced with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. By positioning participants as narrative architects, Prof Ayisi uses screenings and facilitated discussions to affirm community identity, enrich cultural heritage and deepen critical awareness.

Cultural heritage and resilience also form an integral part of Ayisi’s vision. The Bronze Men of Cameroon documents Bamum bronze artisans in Foumban confronting raw-material scarcity and global competition. Beyond the Parade, currently in production, employs film, animation and Bamum-script poetry to foreground the women’s carnival at the Ngoun Cultural Festival. Forged in Heritage documents the story of a Welsh valleys blacksmith, and Restoring Eden focuses on community-led conservation at Zanzibar’s Migombani Botanic Garden.

Prof Ayisi’s films address marginalisation and cultural erosion by empowering participants and centring their experiences. Community groups, policy organisations and academic partners have benefited from culturally grounded resources for curriculum development, workshops, and policy engagement. As a result, beneficiaries report stronger community identity, enhanced leadership skills, and lasting shifts in local practice driven by participatory storytelling.

Professor Michael Brown works locally and globally with communities and non-governmental organisations, focusing on ethnographic and participatory filmmaking for social change. He typically engages with marginalised, disadvantaged or declining people and their cultures, species, places and ecosystems, to promote dialogue in search of positive transformation.

Prof Brown’s work is grounded on the seminal participatory and development communication principles of Paulo Freire and Nora Cruz Quebral, involving critical self-reflection and agency enhancement. In Nepal, Prof Brown partnered with leading animal welfare NGOs and communities who lives and livelihoods are dependent on working equines.

Using participatory ethnographic filmmaking as a methodology to initiate dialogue across multiple beneficiary groups, the work delivered measurable improvements in mule health, mule-owner financial security, brick factory environments and productivity, veterinary outreach programmes, policymaker awareness and directed funding, journalist awareness and informed outputs leading to heightened public awareness, and development practitioners adopted fresh methodologies.

Prof Brown’s projects have generated practical and methodological benefits for non-academic partners including heritage associations, sustainability bodies, craftspeople, factory owners, veterinary teams and policymakers.

In Wales, Prof Brown is engaged on projects within Butetown and with the Nepalese Society of Wales, using participatory filmmaking methodologies to investigate aspects of cultural heritage, history and migration that can inform the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Anti Racism Wales Action Plan. Through his local and global work, Prof Brown demonstrates how participatory and ethnographic filmmaking can support and catalyse enhanced community agency, lasting community-led development and social change.

Dr Ian Wiblin’s work uses experimental documentary and photography to uncover hidden histories and explore the intersections of memory, place, and political trauma.

His films are characterised by a distinctive approach to documentary that blends archival research with poetic visual storytelling. Four Parts of a Folding Screen (2018) reconstructs the bureaucratic dispossession of a woman in Nazi-era Berlin, using documents and contemporary urban imagery to evoke the hidden histories embedded in everyday spaces.

Alarm Notes (2025) follows the life of Ludwig Koch, a German-Jewish sound recordist, tracing his persecution under the Nazi regime and his later work in Britain. Through Koch’s original recordings and a contemplative visual style, the film bridges past and present, exploring themes of exile, memory, and historical rupture.

Together, these works challenge conventional documentary form by foregrounding absence, silence, and the material traces of trauma. Dr Wiblin’s films invite viewers to engage critically with the politics of memory and the lingering effects of historical violence by illuminating overlooked narratives.