Amber Films
Launch (1973)
from: Film Archive
The classic shot of the launch of an oil tanker at the bottom of a street has ensured the popularity of this beautiful documentary, opening up on the epic experience of shipbuilding communities. See a video clip
specialised in hand glassmaking for industrial markets, from fine capillary tubes to large carboys.
Available as VHS
Available as DVD
Bowes Line (1975)
from: Film Archive
One of Amber's most popular films, documenting the Bowes Railway, built by George Stephenson and linking Kibblesworth Colliery with Jarrow Staithes. See a video clip
Available as VHS - soon to be released on Amber's Tyne Documentaries DVD
Shooting Magpies (2005)
from: Film Archive
The third in Amber's coalfield trilogy of free-standing feature dramas exploring post-industrial experience in East Durham, Shooting Magpies looks at the impacts of heroin and the economically marginalised lives of a generation that emerged after coal. See the trailer
Fine performances and an unflinching gaze... New York Times
The Scar (1997)
from: Film Archive
The first film in Amber's coalfield trilogy, exploring women's lives in East Durham in the aftermath of the last colliery closures and the failure of the coalfield campaign in which they had been activists. See a video clip
A drama of enormous importance... Tony Benn
Like Father
from: Film Archive
The second film in Amber's coalfield trilogy, a feature drama exploring the lives of a grandfather, father and son, as they come to terms with the post-closure landscape of East Durham. See a video clip
Hope, humour and rugged beauty amid the bleakness... Independent on Sunday
Eden Valley (1994)
from: Film Archive
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. See a video clip
Proof-positive that good British film-making is alive and living, hundreds of miles from Wardour Street. Time Out
Letters To Katja (1994)
from: Film Archive
In a deeply personal and evocatively universal documentary, Amber photographer & filmmaker Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen returns to her roots in Finland after 23 years in Britain. See a video clip
The Writing In The Sand (1991)
from: Film Archive
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. See a video clip
Poetic, uproarious, and thunderously nostalgic, The Writing in the Sand bears the stamp of an instant British classic. The Times
Available as VHS - DVD to be released soon
Dream On (1991)
from: Film Archive
Magic, fantasy, dreams and social realism in this feature drama exploring the lives of a women's darts team in North Shields.
Amber Styles gives an extraordinary performance as a woman forever willing to give her man a second chance. The Guardian
In Fading Light (1989)
from: Film Archive
A feature drama set in the declining fishing industry in North Shields, the actors auditioned and trained by local fishermen and filmed on the 63 foot seine netter bought by Amber. See a video clip
Compared to the Amber Film's briny air, Man of Aran and the like might almost be drawing room comedies... A forceful portrait of an imperilled way of life and a British film to be reckoned with. The Times
Available as DVD and VHS
Shields Stories (1988)
from: Film Archive
Ten 10 minute video dramas using the soap format to highlight a number of the issues affecting the community of North Shields, where Amber creatively based itself between 1986 and 1991.
T Dan Smith (1987)
from: Film Archive
A powerful, experimental feature film juxtaposing political drama and challenging interviews with T Dan Smith and other key figures associated with his controversial reign as Leader of Newcastle City Council in the 1960s.
Among the most interesting and socially relevant of contemporary films. New Statesman
The Privatisation Tapes (1986)
from: Film Archive
The issues facing local authority and hospital workers as the Conservative government took its programme of privatisation forward in the mid-1980s: six video documentaries made by Amber's Current Affairs Unit.
Double Vision: Boxing For Hartlepool (1986)
from: Film Archive
Boxing in the North East of England explored in a blend of documentary and drama, centred on the gym run by George Bowes in Hartlepool.
The Sadler Story (1985)
from: Film Archive
The life of Tyneside pacifist Jack Sadler explored in a video documentar, part of Amber's Current Affairs Unit's engagement with the peace movement.
Can't Beat It Alone (1985)
from: Film Archive
The issues that brought together the campaign against pit closures, the anti-nuclear and the peace movements, explored in a video documentary by Amber's Current Affairs Unit.
Seacoal (1985)
from: Film Archive
A visually powerful drama exploring the raw capitalism of seacoaling, rooted in a documentary engagement with the community of seacoalers on Lynemouth Beach in Northumberland: Amber's first feature film.
Even though the group insists there is no dominant creative individual there is evidently a real film genius at work here. The Times
Behind The Vote (1984)
from: Film Archive
An Amber Films Current Affairs Unity video documentary looking at the 1984 Chesterfield by-election and the return to parliament of left wing politician Tony Benn.
Beyond The Vote (1984)
from: Film Archive
The relationship between the Labour Party and its voters, examined in an Amber Current Affairs Unit video documentary focused on the Chesterfield by-election of 1984.
News From Durham & Where Are We Going (1983)
from: Film Archive
A discussion 'trigger tape' and a fuller documentary combining footage from the 100th Durham Miners' gala and of a miners' weekend school looking at the issues of concern to the mineworkers' union in the build-up to the national strike of 1984.
Byker (1983)
from: Film Archive
Richly evocative of British working class community, a partly dramatised documentary built around Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's black & white photographs of the Newcastle terraced community in which she lived before it was demolished to make way for the Byker Wall.
Book available also
Keeping Time (1983)
from: Film Archive
A North Shields dancing school and mother-daughter relationships in a blend of drama and documentary, which led to Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's book and exhibition *Step by Step**.
The Filleting Machine (1981)
from: Film Archive
Rooted in his own experience of the North Shields fish quay and set on the Ridges estate, a powerful film drama written by Tom Hadaway.
Quayside (1979)
from: Film Archive
A black & white documentary film that formed part of Amber's campaign to preserve the architectural heritage of Newcastle's Quayside, then threatened by the city's plans for redevelopment.
That's Not Me (1978)
from: Film Archive
Actor Tim Healey, then part of Live Theatre, later known for his roles in Aufwiedersehen Pet and more, documented as he tries his hand as a stand-up comedian in the workingmen's clubs of North East England.
Laurie (1978)
from: Film Archive
A documentary film about South Shields born, self-taught sculptor Laurie Wheatley producing a life size sculpture of a welder.
Glassworks (1977)
from: Film Archive
A beautiful wordless documentary record of a Tyneside factory which specialised in hand glassmaking for industrial markets, from fine capillary tubes to large carboys. See a video clip
Available as VHS
Available as DVD
Last Shift (1976)
from: Film Archive
Starting with the workers' discussion of the future of Darkie the Horse, the documentary records the processes of a handmade brick factory, seemingly untouched by the industrial revolution.
Available as VHS
Available as DVD
Mai (1974)
from: Film Archive
The obsessive collector Mai Finglass was the landlady of Amber members Murray Martin and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, when they were studying film at Regents Street Polytechnic. This beautiful documentary was the completion of a project they initiated as students.
High Row (1974)
from: Film Archive
The workers at this small drift coal mine, high in the Pennines, near Alston in Cumbria, collaborated with Amber in this documentary reconstruction of their working lives.
Jellyfish (1973)
from: Film Archive
An early experiment in Amber's manipulation of still imagery, an animation placing people and objects on a beach, generating a pervasive sense of unease in the context of the nuclear threat.
All You Need is Dynamite (1968)
from: Film Archive
Made by some of the Regents Street Polytechnic students who formed Amber, a documentary following some of the disaffected working class youths charged after the Grosvenor Square riot in May 1968.
Maybe (1969)
from: Film Archive
A gentle documentary about the Shields Ferry on the River Tyne and its engine man, initiated while studying film at Regents Street Polytechnic by members of the group that was to become Amber.
Current Activity
from: About Us
The Bamboozler (2007)
from: Film Archive
A documentary about love, death and percussion; about Tyneside percussionist Bruce Arthur, the creation of the Rumba Palace on Newcastle's Ouseburn and the making of Bruce's last sound sculpture.
The Pursuit of Happiness (2008)
from: Film Archive
Starting out as a film about the Coulsons, a horsey family in Craghead, County Durham, when Amber founder member and key visionary Murray Martin died in 2007, it became a documentary about a filmmaker who became part of the world he documented.