Keyword New Town

A young man in high school moves in with his Mother to a town in the U.S. Southwest where his father is serving time in prison.

A young woman struggles to pay the hospital bills of her vegetative husband. Despite her hard work, there's no hope for him to ever wake up, until an opportunity arises.

A teenage boy and his mother are on the run. The father is violent and has a history of beating up his wife. They manage to get away from him and drive far away, until they arrive in a small town where they settle down. They rent a house from a nice man and soon they forget everything that has happened in the past, until the boy begins to have bad dreams of his father.

What does it mean to be British? Gabriel, a dentist originally from Hong Kong, has lived in Milton Keynes for nearly 50 years. His mixed race son Michael couldn't wait to leave. Now a film-maker, he returns to the city to discover how his father feels about the place he has made home.

The suburbs are often portrayed as dull, conformist and hermetic. But with over 80% of the UK population calling these areas home, this playful yet empathetic short film challenges enduring stereotypes by centring the experiences and eccentricities of their numerous residents. The development of these spaces, and the narratives surrounding them, has been captured over the past 100 years by early filmmakers, citizen journalists, amateur documentarians and, most recently, a growing charge of online moving image creators – all brought together here to reveal the multiple identities and realities underneath the cultural image.

Doug Funnie experiences common predicaments while attending school in his new hometown of Bluffington, Virginia.