Documentary follows the lives of parkour experts after tragedy

Off the Rails is a feature documentary, directed and produced by Peter Day, whose company, Faction Films, is based in Shacklewell Lane.

Parkour is an athletic discipline where people run, jump and climb through an urban environment.

Peter said: "It's a rights of passage film which follows three young men in Guildford who bond together over parkour.

"One of them discovers that if you post stuff on the internet, the scarier and hairier things [are that] you do, the more views you get. And as a consequence he gets quite a lot of views train-surfing and doing what's known as 'urbex' (urban exploration).

"One of the other lads dies in a misadventure on a train in Paris so the film sort of begins in the aftermath of that death, and it examines how their trauma sets [up] the two surviving friends."

After premiering at Sheffield Documentary Festival in June, the film has won multiple awards, including Best Documentary at Buenos Aires International Film Festival and Best Film at DocEdge.

Throughout the film, Rikke and his friends take on more ambitious challenges across Europe, including high-risk climbs of the Severn Bridge, Forth Road Bridge and Berlin's TV Tower (Image: Hector Pitt)

Peter said: "I was interested in the way these young guys had been told they were not going to amount to anything and pretty well dropped out of school. But all the time they were working really hard and telling stories on the internet, using computers, completely self-taught with kit that was pretty impressive. [They were] building an audience and effectively becoming entrepreneurs and I thought that was really exciting as I'm a filmmaker myself."

The film follows Rikke Brewer (pictured) and his best mate Aiden Knox as they refine their parkour skills in a bid to find fame and fortune while the death of their close friend triggers a darker story about broken families and fragile mental health (Image: Rikke Brewer)

Faction Films has been based in Dalston for over 20 years.

Peter said: "It's an exciting place now and it was an exciting place then, although a lot more difficult for goods and services. Basically, we got a derelict building and got help from the council and helped change it and brought in other filmmakers and artists - we were part of a vanguard if you like."

Off the Rails is produced by Peter Day, Grant Keir and Rob Alexander and is supported by Ffilm Cymru Wales and Creative Scotland.

Off the Rails will be screened at Genesis Cinema at 6.20pm tonight (Wednesday, September 28), followed by a Q&A with Rikke Brewer, one of the young men the film follows.

Visit factionmedia.co.uk/screenings. The trailer can be watched at vimeo.com/678822795