Operation Syncopation

In 2017 Maxim worked with Professor Amelia Oldfield of Anglia Ruskin University, to record a series of meetings that she held with families who had received music therapy in 2000-2002. Although the original intention was to document these sessions for teaching purposes the project turned into the successful and groundbreaking OPERATION SYNCOPATION, a feature-length documentary about the effectivess of music therapy for young children with autism.

OPERATION SYNCOPATION screened at the 2017 Cambridge Film Festival and won the Silver Punt Audience Award for best Feature Documentary, and has since been screened at music therapy conferences in London, Cambridge, Dallas and Wurzburg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaVtUHOk_RM

Immortal Jellyfish Porn

Made at University on the back of a £1000 Kickstarter. A disturbing examination of the psychological decay of an isolated undergraduate. Filmed entirely from the viewpoint of the main character’s laptop screen in his increasingly squalid room the film anticipated UNFRIENDED and SEARCHING by portraying a life lived online through a screen.


It’s age-restricted so you have to go to YouTube to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfRxY5yHq2Q

Operation Syncopation at CFF

My first feature documentary screens today at the Cambridge Film Festival.

This ground-breaking documentary follows Professor Amelia Oldfield as she revisits ten families who received music therapy from her over fifteen years ago, and explores the impact of the therapy on the life trajectories of young people with autism.

Mixing archive footage from the original research, recordings of the sessions with Amelia Oldfield and the families, and specially shot interviews with Anglia Ruskin University music therapists, Operation Syncopation offers an unprecedented window into the work of the music therapist and the development of ways for parent and child to communicate.

Operation Syncopation

Director: Maxim Thompson.
With: Amelia Oldfield, Emma Davies, Dawn Loombe.

https://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/film/operation-syncopation