Folkestone Documentary Festival, Our Land and The Folkestone Elephant (Charlie Phillips)

Folkestone Documentary Festival was co-founded by documentary producer Charlie Phillips and programmer James Collie, growing from Folkestone’s monthly Doc Club screenings. Now held annually at the Silver Screen Cinema and venues across the town, the festival presents new feature documentaries, short films and artist films alongside filmmaker Q&As, public discussions, industry activity and social events.

As the festival’s Artistic Director, Charlie helps create an accessible space in which documentary can open conversations about contemporary life. Its programmes have explored subjects including climate change, migration, mental health, identity, workers’ rights and social justice, bringing international filmmaking into dialogue with local audiences and communities. The festival is recognised as a qualifying festival for both the BIFA and Grierson Awards.

Charlie was a producer of Orban Wallace’s feature documentary Our Land, which investigates the history of land ownership in England and the continuing debate over who should be able to access the countryside. Following Right to Roam campaigners alongside landowners who see themselves as custodians of the landscape, it examines competing ideas of access, conservation, inheritance and responsibility. Supported by the BFI Doc Society Fund and The Uncertain Kingdom, the film received its world premiere at Sheffield DocFest in 2025 before screening internationally and receiving a UK cinema release.

Charlie also produced The Folkestone Elephant, a BFI NETWORK-supported immersive project created by Astrid Goldsmith and Craig Gell. Combining an augmented-reality countryside walk, fictional archive films, animation, sound and a museum exhibition, the project invites audiences on an archaeological expedition across the North Downs in search of Folkestone’s legendary Ice Age elephant. Drawing on local landscape, superstition, folk customs and invented history, it playfully blurs the boundaries between documentary evidence and folklore.

Together, these projects demonstrate how documentary and immersive storytelling can connect large social questions with individual experience, local history and place - inviting audiences not only to watch, but to explore, question and participate.

Visit Folkestone Documentary Festival | Discover Our Land | Explore The Folkestone Elephant