Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Five interlocking fictional stories depicting the lives of Brazilians and Londoners who co-exist under difficult emotional and psychological circumstances. The turmoil takes place against a backdrop of haunting memories, broken dreams, future hopes, exciting samba music and the festival spirit of London’s spectacular Notting Hill carnival.

Synopsis

When a rose is left in the mailbox of Anna, a mute woman, her protective brother worries that the senders intentions may be evil, rather than romantic. As yet more roses arrive, her brother begins to suspect that Anna is keeping something from him.

Synopsis

The Anniversary is a short romantic comedy. Hippy student Sarah consoles her housemate Jake with Tequila, when she discovers he is missing his long-term girlfriend on their anniversary. Only things go wrong when she decides to drag him out clubbing.

Synopsis

Runa, a British Bangladeshi girl, is excited to take her holiday with her father to Bangladesh - the country of origin of her father; she is floating in a sweet dream of a great adventurous holiday - different part of the world, different culture, ocean wide tea garden, the hugest tiger, mountains, fountains etc. Her sweet dream turns into a blood-chilling nightmare when, in a dramatic auction, her father sells her to her animal-like uncle and her uncle forces her into marriage to his son who is several years younger than Runa.   Runa's life turns into great suffering in that backward society where women have virtually no rights and absolutely no control over their lives. Despite this, she never stops thinking of being free knowing that it is almost impossible to escape from the village which is absolutely under her uncle's control. But one day, the impossible becomes possible, with a tremendous effort of the Forced Marriage Unit of British Home Office Runa escapes. Runa is flown back to the UK, to her boyfriend, who unbelievably denies her as his mother doesn't want to take a runaway girl as her daughter-in-law. Runa then walks away alone - all alone.

Synopsis

The first reported case of HIV in Papua New Guinea was in 1987. Since then, this 'Bad Sickness', perceived to be a punishment from God, has penetrated into the lives of the people and torn apart communities. In the atmosphere of silence, stigma breeds, and people are left to die. This film features the lives of extraordinary people who have been affected by HIV and are actively challenging prevailing social attitudes and behaviours.

Synopsis

Milo is a professional hitman living on the edge. When he fails to fulfil a contract for the first time in his career, he is forced to escape the city to avoid the wrath of his employers who are keen to make him pay for his apparent failure. Pursued by a ruthless colleague who has been charged with delivering his punishment, Milo hides out in a remote rural village where the locals mistake him for the new baker. Forced to bake bread and cakes to maintain his cover, what he discovers in the process is nothing short of a revelation. When sparks fly with the beautiful local vet, he decides to start a legitimate new life as the village baker; but with his past about to catch up with him, Milo soon discovers that you can't always have your cake and eat it.

Synopsis

Bob Dylan once said 'I don't think I'm gonna be really understood until maybe 100 years from now'. Author of the Dylan To English Dictionary, a Dylanologist and originator of Garbology (the practice of rooting through rubbish in order to gain insight into prominent people's lives), A J Weberman has made it his life's work to understand Bob Dylan. At times hilarious, at other times disturbing, this film is an interesting observation on our unbalanced desires to know more about celebrities and how far we are willing to go to get that information. Weberman does not see himself as a stalker and insists that Dylan should be grateful that he is around: 'I would have been to Dylan what Verlaine was to Rimbaud'. It's hard to see this as a tale of poet and critic, but rather a look at the bizarre relationship between the obsessed and the object of his obsession and how it can completely take over a man's life. A hilarious recorded telephone conversation between A J Weberman and Bob Dylan from the 1970s punctuates the film in the form of animations, creating connections between Weberman's past and present. The film also enjoys a memorable cast of secondary characters including New York street poet David Peel, former child dancer Jay Byrd and Aaron Kay 'The Pieman'. To top it all, the film features a vivid Americana soundtrack performed by cast members, which adds a surreal commentary to the proceedings, creating a documentary like no other.  

Synopsis

The story of elderly Welsh farming woman, Betty French. After being reported to the Ministry, Betty is reluctantly forced to change her way of life.

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Blurring the line between live action and animation, this is a remarkable re-telling of a seminal event in British and Anglo-Jewish history. A young boy is taken inside the magical world of his own sketchbook by his grandfather, and shown what it was like when Oswald Mosley's 'blackshirt fascists' attempted to march through the East End of London.

Synopsis

This documentary is a Trojan horse; strikingly using richly layered animation to smuggle through the audience’s compassion fatigue a story of two Ugandan women affected by HIV/AIDS. The Beloved Ones has a distinctive visual style, lyrical and impressionistic. This lends itself to the depiction of an Africa that despite its problems is a home to full lives, not just a series of tragic statistics.

Synopsis

A man wanders alone moving from town to town in North West India. Once a brave warrior now a Boatmaker for Yama, Lord of Death. He is Dharayan and ferrying souls is the price he pays for being granted immortality as a warrior. But Dharayan desires nothing more than to die and be with his son murdered by his enemies. When Dharayan arrives at a new town he is met with suspicion and hostility except for a young girl called Sonu who greets with him with kindness and friendship. Sonu's charm begins to win over the emotionally closed off Boatmaker who forges a close bond with the child and her widow mother. After making more boats than he can recall, Dharayan learns he can finally be with his son if he collects one last soul. He begins his last task only to discover it is for Sonu's mother. The young child begs him not to take her mother away forcing Dharayan to choose between saving Sonu's mother or joining his son.

Synopsis

On a busy London street, Gina thinks she sees herself drive past in her own car. Stunned by this strange event, she follows the mystery woman up to her apartment. From here, events take an eerie turn for the worse until Gina's awareness slides from solid reality into a world that will haunt more than just her nightmares.