Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

In a secret world a family's code of honour is under threat, and an ancient way of life is knocked off it's axis by one small boys act of grace. A young Dezzie befriends Yasin, a Chinese boy who has recently arrived from Hong Kong, little does he know his life will take an unexpected turn that ultimately shape his future. They become firm and loyal friends until Yasin is taken away suddenly by his godfather, Kai. Ten years pass until Yasin returns and offers Dezzie an envious position at his side within the family firm. But this is a firm with a difference: Dezzie, the only white man to do so this side of the Atlantic is to be a triad member and run the family business in Manchester.

Synopsis

Returning to the village of his estranged wife, James grows increasingly concerned when the sinister owner of his guest house refuses to let him leave. A psychological suspense with a surprising yet moving denouement.

Synopsis

Alba is a classic story of hope. Even in the darkest corners a better future is possible if we believe and will fight for it. The short cleverly combines film and animation to portray the life and dreams of a boy stricken with illness. Following his experiences we see how the sterile and sombre life on a hospital world explodes in to the bright colours of a brilliant world of adventure. Lost in this fantastical universe the boy confronts his fear whilst fighting for survival and a way home. As the courageous knight he slays his demons finding the dawn light beyond the night of his world.

Synopsis

Seventeen year old force-of-nature Emelia starts a new job at The Cliff House, a small hotel run by the dysfunctional Fischer family. Beth Fischer, also seventeen, is cramming for her exams in a desperate bid to escape to University. Dad Jonathan is an author. Once the bright young thing of the literary establishment, he is now suffering interminable writer's block. Wife Joa runs the hotel Jonathan bought with earnings from his first book. She resents it, him, and everyone around her as she gave up her 'promising career as an actress' for this. Emelia is an aspiring writer; believing she is following in the footsteps of her great-grandfather Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. Jonathan sees promise in Emelia and begins to tutor her, but their relationship quickly crosses the pupil-teacher line and they embark on a love affair. At the same time, Emelia and Beth strike up a surprise friendship: Emelia's free-spirit helps Beth learn to let her hair down and Emelia is inspired by Beth's determination and focus. Secrets are revealed as the threads of the story collide and unravel. Can Emelia get rid of the Albatross that hangs round her neck and rewrite herself?

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GBH, murder, nuclear strike - just one man's desperate quest to avoid delivering the best man speech.

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Two Eritrean girls enchant with fragmentary tales of escaping their country, telling us what it feels like living as an unaccompanied child refugee, alone in London. An intimate portrait, highlighting the emotional fallout of political conflict commissioned as part of London Borough of Islington's 'Kick Islamophobia' campaign.

Synopsis

Music documentary about cult 'punk poet' Patrik Fitzgerald (born as Patrick Joseph Fitzgerald in Stratford, London, March 19, 1956) - son of working-class Irish immigrant parents, he began recording and performing during the punk rock movement in 1977. Composer of punk anthem 'Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart', Fitzgerald kicked against the punk orthodoxy by performing waif-like and vulnerably alone with an acoustic guitar and a tattered book of poems at the height of the punk revolution

Synopsis

A drama based on a true story in which a restaurant chef haunted by his past, challenges a village mayor's opposition to a proposal for a motorway. The ramifications lead ultimately to devastation and inspiration, as seen through the eyes of a young restaurant pianist.  

Synopsis

This is a hard-hitting documentary about Condoleezza Rice, an extraordinary but little understood woman who rose from segregated Alabama to become the most powerful woman in the world. Incisive and shocking, this is the first retrospective film on the Bush Administration. It overturns the popular misconception of Rice as a yes-woman to President Bush to reveal her as his most enduring confidante, and thus responsible for much of the Bush legacy. This political, biographical documentary tells a Faustian story of a woman whose hubris tempted her into a pursuit of power that destroyed her core values, and hurtled America into a perilous new direction.   Dr Rice leads her own defense, through a series of candid interviews. We have exclusive interviews with her three most authoritative biographers: Marcus Mabry (Twice As Good); Glenn Kessler (The Confidante); and Antonia Felix (Condi).   The film's most disturbing revelations center on Rice's role as Chair of the group of 'Principals', whose role was to select and authorize torture techniques, which included water-boarding, fingernail extraction, and sleep deprivation. Condi signed off on the orders to the CIA with the words, 'This is your Baby, go do it!'.

Synopsis

Born into a world of wealth and privilege, he devotes his life to eliminating poverty and inequality. A religious leader who traces his ancestry back to the Prophet Muhammad, he struggles to balance the traditional with the modern. His Highness the Aga Khan is the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, a Shia sect with 15 million followers around the world. At a time when Islam is at odds with itself and with the West, the Aga Khan represents a voice of moderation, speaking out for pluralism and diversity, and promoting dialogue between civilizations. But will he be heard?  

Synopsis

A writer returns, disillusioned, to London and Paris. He begins on a story: a sleeper cell of young, glamorous urban terrorists. Gabriella, glamorous trophy wife of a young king-in-exile, holed up in an opulent London riverside penthouse, falls under the spell of a modern-day Che Guevara and, Patty Hearst-style, enlists in The Cause. She is sent to Paris under the 'front' of a drama student aiming at film. She takes her studies exceptionally seriously: encounters Bernard Stiegler, the leading philosopher on the subject of cinema and the human condition, and other luminaries. And she meets fellow-"student" activists, half-sister and -brother Julia and Sam, skilled actors who seem more interested in petty crime and scams. Their father is a political prisoner held in London; is he the master-mind? Has he been grooming them since childhood? Our writer adopts the persona of a sleuth as he follows these anti-heroes. Books are passed, stolen: do they bear coded messages? Why is Gabriella obsessed with capturing her interviews on an outdated Nagra tape-recorder? What is their connection with the incipient terrorism on the city streets? So our writer/sleuth uncovers events; but is he documenting actuality, or inventing a fiction?

Synopsis

Ana’s husband has died. She finds herself alone, isolated in her home on the outskirts of a rural village in North Devon, trying to start again. It is a cold February; grey, wet, misty days blur into one. At first Frazer is there as support, a solid presence, a man’s man: someone to lean on. Yet Frazer is also lost. Ana is young and beautiful; he is older, trapped in a marriage that died years ago. The relationship develops. There is tension; it’s complicated. Guilt is felt on both sides and as time passes Frazer begins to fall in love with her. Confused emotions and suppressed desire drive the two towards inevitable  conflict until finally Ana must confront her true feelings for Frazer and, with  or without him, move on. And this can be her only certainty: that by the end, things will be beginning again. Ana Begins is a subtle and intricate love story that explores and embraces the confusions of suppressed desire.