FRANK ELI MARTIN



Frank Eli Martin is a London based director and cinematographer. He is interested in boundaries of genre, formal experimentation and the hallucinogenic and uncanny. His first film, ‘Cold Stack’ (2021), is a magical realist documentation of the decline of the oil rig industry and was nominated in the UK competition at Sheffield Doc Fest 2021. His second short, ‘Five Scenes From the War in Afghanistan as They Appear in East Sussex’ (2021), was nominated for best short at IDFA 2021, and documents a war veteran and gardener's fragmented experience of time. The film also screened at Sheffield Doc Fest 2022. Martin’s graduation film at NFTS, the Paradise Park Will Close on Fridays at Three depicted the absurdity of a theme park built in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and was nominated for an IDA award in 2023. His next short ‘I Am The Immaculate Conception’, about visionary experiences of the Virgin Mary in rural Ireland, screened at True False, Big Sky Doc Fest, and London Short Film Festival 2024.

He is a graduate of the Directing Documentary course at the National Film and Television School. 
frankelimartin@gmail.com


Documentary // Commercial


In an enormous silver dome, on the edge of an Israeli settlement and in the middle of the Palestinian desert, a new and fantastical Israeli theme park has recently emerged.

The film documents both the astonishing absurdity of this strange construction and the perception distorting, even psychotropic, effects it seems to have on its inhabitants. As the film progresses, we encounter a pervasive sense of delusion, and the tragedy behind a gaudy veneer.



I Am The Immaculate Conception (2023)

London Short Film Festival 2024
Big Sky Film Festival 2024
True False Film Festival 2024
DC Dox 2024

 

In 1985, the village of Ballinspittle in Ireland was the site of a mass visionary experience. Worshippers at the local grotto saw the statue of the Virgin Mary come to life. Soon, thousands made the pilgrimage and—for a summer—the phenomenon gripped the country.

Almost forty years later, a handful of local devotees remain, including the statue’s dutiful caretaker Patrick Joseph Simms. Through Simms and a chorus of locals, the film documents both the mystical landscape of rural Irish Catholicism and a terrible darkness beneath its surface.


Five Scenes From The War in Afghanistan as They Appear in East Sussex (2021) 

Nominated IDFA Best Short Doc 2021
Official Selection Sheffield Doc Fest 2022


     
The War in Afghanistan has come to an end and its most tangible legacy for soldiers and civilians alike is its destruction.

Clement Boland is one such victim. The film attempts to convey Boland’s subjective experience of the strangeness of conflict, and the way his damaged imagination imposes a fragmented chronology onto the idyllic landscape of his native Sussex.

Cold Stack (2021)

Nominated Sheffield Doc Fest UK Competition 2021
International Panorama Ecofalante 2022
Edinburgh Green Film Festival 2021


 

Cold Stack charts the melancholic decline of the oil rig industry in the Scottish Highlands.

Divided into three parts, the first depicts the Kishorn fabrication yard, the second section of the film shows the dereliction of the Cromarty Firth. The final section looks to the future, considering the otherworldly beauty of the wind farming that is now dominant in the area.




©2023