The Shadow Contains the Gold (2025)

Narrated by actor Everal Walsh, the film weaves together the voices and experiences of four friends in Leeds UK- a DJ/music promoter, an artist, a saxophonist and a black activist - as they reflect on the lasting emotional and psychological impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Blending archive and contemporary footage, painting, and the ‘flow’ of jazz improvisation, The Shadow Quartet, interpret two pieces which provide the structural backbone and a contemporary commentary: Ahmad Jamal’s This Terrible Planet and Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) Hajj الحج (The Journey), as music clashes with real world events, providing a vessel for reflection and resistance. Sounds resonate with personal stories as local activism connects global moments: the murder of George Floyd, the fractures of Brexit, and the growing shadow of government corruption and economic precocity, where the past haunts the present, but where the shadows of trauma reveal glimmers of transformation and grace.

Scroll right for 'proof of concept' trailer.

BMT