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Hill Station (Ireland/UK, 2026), 30min, Digital,

Film, and installation made with Killian O'Dochartaigh

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In 1899, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine commissioned a research expedition  to Freetown in Sierra Leone to investigate the prevention of malaria. Its findings led to the construction of Hill Station, a racially segregated settlement, built above the city and designed to house 'Europeans only'. Hill Station explores architecture, medical science and colonialism and the complex links between two port cities, Liverpool and Freetown.


With support from Graham Foundation, Irish Arts Council, UCL and University of Edinburgh


Selected screenings


Originally shown in the Hill Station: Altitudes of Empire exhibition co-curated by Edward Lawrenson and Killian O'Dochartaigh, at the Tate Liverpool/RIBA North, September-November, 2025

Open City Documentary Festival, April 2026




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A Safer Place (UK, 2021) 18min, HD



As tourists gather on a beach in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, a scientist explains the devastation that the rains will bring over the summer months. Just a few miles away is the Rohingya refugee camp, the world’s biggest refugee settlement. As the scientist warns of the risk of landslides in the camps, a group of Rohingya women reflect on how to prepare for this imminent disaster.


With support from KSA research grant


Selected screenings


Otherfield Festival, England, July 2021

Refugee Tales special screening, January 2021
The Second International Conference on the Rohingya Crisis, UCL, December 2020


Distribution

True Story VoD, streaming on demand, all territories

Trailer


Press

The Big Issue, January 9

Uppland (UK/Ireland, 2018) 30min, HD, Super 8
Made with Killian O'Dochartaigh

An architect and filmmaker from Europe visit a town in the remote highlands of Liberia, once a thriving mining community, now decaying and desolate: a concrete ruin in the West African bush. Exploring the town, these researchers discover through its buildings a story of the promise of prosperity and forgotten injustices. A film about architecture, about the remnants of colonialism, and the spiritual cost of industrial mining. 

With support from Open City Border Crossing and Irish Arts Council

Winner of Society of Architectural Historians Award for Best Film about Architecture, 2021

Selected screenings

Cinema du réel, Pompidou Centre, March 2018
Venice Biennale Architettura, Lithuania Pavilion, June 2018
Open City Documentary Festival, London, September 2018
Kaunas International Film Festival, Lithuania, September 2018
Janela Internacional de Cinema, Recife, Brazil, November 2018
Cork Film Festival, Ireland, November
First Look 2019, Museum of Moving Image, New York, January 2019
Star and Shadow, Newcastle upon Tyne, May, 2019
Tabor Film Festival, Croatia, July 2019
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, September 2019
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Distribution
True Story VoD, streaming on demand, all territories except US
Grasshopper Film (US, non-theatrical)
Images de la culture, National Catalogue of Documentaries, CNC (France)

Press
Sight & Sound, Unfiction column by Michael Pattison, September 2018
Africa is a Country, 'The ruins of a mining economy' by Danny Hoffman, May 2019
Abandoned Goods (UK, 2014), 36min, 35mm, 16mm, HD
Codirected with Pia Borg

In 1946, doctors at an English psychiatric hospital opened a studio for patients to make art. Conceived as a laboratory for diagnostic purposes, the studio was one of the first of its kind. Facilitated by the artist Edward Adamson, it soon became a site for free expression. Over the years, the residents created thousands of works, but most of them were destroyed when the hospital closed in 1993. Charting the fate of the 5,500 surviving artworks, Abandoned Goods tells the story of the collection. Blending archive, rostrum and observational footage, it explores the transformation of the objects from clinical material to revered art, examining the changing contexts in which they were produced and displayed.

With support from Wellcome Trust and the Maudsley Charity
Produced by Fly Film

Selected screenings

Golden Leopard prize for Best International Short, Locarno International Film Festival, August 2014
BFI London Film Festival, October 2014
Hamptons International Film Festival, October 2014
Best Image prize, Janela Internacional de Cinema, Brazil, November 2014
Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, December 2014
First Fortnight, Irish Film Institute, Dublin, January 2015
Sundance Film Festival, Official Competition, Park City, January 2015
True/False Festival, Columbia, Missouri, February 2015
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, North Carolina, April 2015
Busan International Short Film Festival, April 2015
Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage, May 2015
East End Film Festival, London, July 2015
Museum of Moving Image, 'First Look' festival, New York, January 2016
ICA screening, September 2016
Installation in Bedlam: the Asylum and Beyond, the Welcome Collection, September 2016 to January 2017
Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Shelter in Place online screening, June 2020

Press
Named in 100 Greatest British Films published by Little White Lies, July/August 2019
Sight & Sound, Sundance 2015 by Robert Greene, February 2015

Documentary for Short Cuts, 'Never Let Me Go' episode
Produced by Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio 4, broadcast February 2018

A grieving widower talks about the vivid presence of his wife's memory

Documentary for Short Cuts, 'Borderlands' episode
Produced by Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio 4, broadcast November 2016

Patients in a New York hospice describe their dreams


Edward Lawrenson has contributed articles and criticism for a variety of publications including Sight & Sound, Flim Quarterly, Time Out, the Guardian, the Big Issue and Screen International.

Selected writing
'The Gleaners and I: Creative Recycling and Self-portraiture', essay for the Agnès Varda Collection, DVD boxset, Curzon Artificial Eye, 2017
'Farewell Leicester Square', Sight & Sound, April 2015
'Edge of Darkness: The Turin Horse', Film Quarterly, June 2011 

Edward Lawrenson is a Scottish filmmaker and writer based in London. His films have played at a number of festivals, including Sundance, BFI London Film Festival, True/False, Open City; and cinemas, including the Museum of the Moving Image in New York and London's ICA. He has also made radio documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Lawrenson's 2014 documentary Abandoned Goods (codirected with Pia Borg) won the Golden Leopard for Best International Short at the Locarno Film Festival and he was named as one of Filmmaker Magazine's '25 New Faces of Independent Film' in 2015.

Lawrenson has written on film for a number of publications, including Sight & Sound, Film Quarterly and Screen International. He was deputy editor of Sight & Sound from 2000 to 2006. He is a programme consultant for BFI London Film Festival and has programmed for the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

 He teaches documentary filmmaking at University College London. 

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