Where Dragons Live

Cumnor Place, Oxford, recently saw the death of its last resident. Her four adult children have gathered to clear out the family home for sale. It is filled to the brim with scientific and esoteric memorabilia, antique furniture, piles of documents and family pictures. Every corner breathes the history of this eccentric family, where an ambitious scientist ruled as a strict mother and a father – a dragon fan – provided quirky stories.

In this almost fairytale-like, observational documentary, the heirs encounter dragons everywhere. Sometimes depicted in paintings and signs, sometimes in notebooks full of made-up 'scientific' terminology, in the Beowulf epic and in family myths about ponds filled with dragon's blood.

The Impey family is filmed for a period in empty spaces, where a magical soundscape of wind gusts, squeaks and creaks resounds. Every object that passes through their hands elicits bittersweet stories of an unorthodox childhood full of imaginative adventures, but also of complex family relationships, isolation and deep-rooted fears.