Story Compound is an award-winning film and television production company immersing audiences in unexplored worlds.
Documentary
The Medallion
Director: Ruth Hunduma
Producer(s): Lily Usher, Tolu Stedford
DOP: Henry Gill
Editor: Marnie Hollande
A single piece of jewellery holds the story of generations. Ruth was barely a teenager when her mother passed down her Medallion, etched with the golden portrait of Nefertiti. Together, they go back to Ethiopia and explore her mother’s story as a survivor of the Red Terror genocide. Amidst a new civil war, the two revisit a country bursting with history and culture.
The Medallion won Best International Film by the Student Jury at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (2024) and Best Documentary Short at UK Film Festival (2024). The documentary has screened at over 40 film festivals around the world, was shortlisted for an IDA Award and Cinema Eye Honours (2024) and won Best Documentary at San Francisco International Film Festival (2024), which qualified the film for the 97th Academy Awards. The documentary has been acquired by The New Yorker and is distributed by SUDU Connexion for France and Germany and TAPE Collective for the UK.
Press:
Telling the Story of Ethiopia's Red Terror Through A Family Artefact (Published on The New Yorker)
SSFILM Announces Golden Gate Winners at the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival
The Long Juju
Director: Keme Nzerem
Producer(s): Tolu Stedford, Lily Usher
Award-winning British journalist, Keme Nzerem, discovers an ancient will that turns his world upside down: a descendant of both white American enslavers and Nigerian slave traffickers. Keme goes on a courageous and moving search for the descendants of those his family enslaved; but, will he be prepared for what he discovers?
Silent Walls
Director: Coco Wouters
Producer(s): Lily Usher, Tolu Stedford
After being told she has to leave her home of over 30 years in two weeks; housing-activist Aysen Dennis must leave her Aylesbury council estate home. However, she also has to leave behind the memories of her beloved sister Pinar, whose spirit is very much still alive in the flat.
Ice Breakers
Director: Georgie Yukiko Donovan
Producer(s): Lily Usher, Tolu Stedford, Dilmini Dissanayake
Days before the 2018 Winter Olympics, twelve North Korean players are thrust into South Korea's Women's Ice Hockey team in a last-ditch political gamble to reduce nuclear tensions. Icebreakers captures the journey of these women, once enemies, now teammates - whose transformation from political pawns to symbols of unity defies all odds and ignites the ice.