Marc Isaacs has spent the past two decades with so many of the people the modern United Kingdom would prefer not to acknowledge, sharing spaces and stories from the peripheries of British society in a distinctive non-fiction hybrid style that defies easy classification.
Isaacs' is an inventive, profoundly empathetic type of cinema, largely free from so many of the institutional shackles of contemporary British filmmaking. From the beginning of this century, Isaacs has again and again taken up his small digital cameras and engaged with regular British people on their own terms, without any condescension and with all the love and charity in the world. His generosity towards the troubles of working people has taken on an unimaginably greater power and relevance in the long shadow of Brexit, as you'll discover in these films yourselves.
"Between the ages of seven and fifteen, I spent much of my time standing between football goal posts on various muddy fields in suburbia. Nervously watching the drama unfolding in front of me, I would suddenly be forced into action, cast as hero or villain. This is the way the goalkeeper functions and it has parallels with that of the filmmaker. It forced me into the role of the observer early on and enhanced the ‘outsider’ feeling that, by the age of seven, was already a pronounced feature of my personality."
— Excerpt from 'The Human Element' by Marc Isaacs, published by Second Run DVD.
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