They arrive, they smoke, they wait - armed robbers seeking redemption, life-long thieves, addicts and anxious fathers of wayward children. Hard exteriors hide soft centres, old lives exist in young bodies - ordinary people awaiting judgement on an unlovely stretch of pavement outside a London magistrates' court. Whilst waiting for their cases to be heard they reveal their lives, and the complexities of the human soul are laid bare. Tense and intimate conversations with the filmmaker illuminate stories that the magistrates hear daily. Director Marc Isaacs spent three months outside Highbury Magistrates Court and, in doing so, demonstrates how the eye of the camera has the ability to delve much deeper into character and motivation than the eye of the law. Consequently, the more we get to know the characters in this film, the harder it is to make easy judgements. Whilst the court must judge, the filmmaker need not.
DirectorMarc Isaacs
Part of
Includes: Lift, Travellers, Calais: The Last Border, Philip and His Seven Wives, Someday My Prince Will Come, All White in Barking, Men of the City, Outside the Court, The Old Man and His Bed, The Road: A Story of Life and Death, Outsiders, Touched by Murder, Men Who Sleep in Trucks, Sisters, Moments of Silence, Notes on Bangladesh, Rainy Days
