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‘A lot of people think they know how to sharpen pencils, but… they don’t.’ Such is the view of David Rees, an artisan pencil-sharpener who’s sharpened some 1,500 No 2 pencils for paying customers. With deadpan humour and shrewd insight, Rees talks the audience through a step-by-step guide to achieving the perfect pencil point, while giving a brief history of the modern pencil and pencil-sharpening tools. Using the undeniably charismatic Rees as his subject, Kenneth Price’s film is a light reflection on the inherent value of care and precision. It’s also a biting send-up of the plethora of portraits proliferating in our artisan-obsessed times.
Director: Kenneth Price
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Gender
A catchy tune explains the world’s ‘isms’ – according to your mum doing the laundry
5 minutes
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Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
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Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
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Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality
7 minutes
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Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes