Filmed in Afghanistan and Laos, Footprints is a study of the effect of cluster bombs on people and landscape. Where once a landscape was life-providing, after contamination by these bombs, it becomes a source of terror and death.

The film studies the landscape and its people, and enquires into the lives and dreams of the victims of cluster-bomb accidents. And finally, it analyses the design and military purposes of these weapons, and questions whether they should be subject to restrictive laws in the future.

Ben Hopkins graduated from the Royal College of Art in Film Direction in 1995. His first film, a short, Nine Circles (1999), was broadcast in France and Germany on Arte/Zdf; a series of shorts followed: The Holy Time (1994) won Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Design at the 1994 Fuji Film Scholarship; National Achievement Day (1995) won 11 awards; Max Clapper (1996) was film sections shot for the stage play performed at the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill. His feature length films include Simon Magus (1998); The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (1999) (Best Newcomer, Evening Standard Awards).


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