Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Three men meet in the pub that's been their local for 40 years. Only today someone's missing - or is he? Vic slides a box on the bar and takes out the urn of Jack Dodd's ashes, 'for one last look-in'. But why? Jack doesn't know. Or does he? As the men make their way to the sea, stopping at pubs, at Canterbury Cathedral, at the places that hold special meaning to them, they wonder - and they remember. The war, the children, the affairs, the disappointments and the ordinary triumphs. Like an emotional mystery, Last Orders slowly reveals who Jack Dodds was, and by the journey's end, like his friends, we find ourselves missing him too.

Synopsis

A rare collaboration between BBC Films and BBC Documentaries, Last Resort is a moving love story which deals with the controversial issue of asylum seekers. Tanya, young and naîve, leaves Moscow with her street-wise 10-year-old son Artiom, to meet her English fiancé. But after he fails to turn up at the airport, Tanya and her son find themselves virtually imprisoned in a deserted seaside resort where all refugees are forced to live. They have no passports, no money, no rights. Desperate to escape a nightmarish world of misfits and no-hopers, Tanya forges an unusual alliance with amusement arcade manager Alfie, an alliance which soon develops into something more. But is he just another man who will let her down, or will Tanya and Artiom finally escape? 'Paul Pawlikowski was given free rein to select the subject matter and devise the drama. He used improvisation, documentary methods and a documentary-sized crew. The end result is high-quality, low-cost film-making that has a power and individuality rarely found in more conventional drama,' says producer Ruth Caleb.

Synopsis

A nervous, late-night rail traveller, waiting on a near deserted platform for the last train, is overcome by his own paranoid fantasies, as the station transforms into a hostile jungle and his fellow travellers become animals.

Synopsis

An upbeat, oddball, after-hours comedy about the ups and downs of sex and shelf-stacking in the 21st century. Four friends, Sean, Vincent, Jody and Lenny find themselves at something of a dead-end. Trapped in a twilight world of permanent night shift work they hang out together in the local all night café, where their only escape from the drudgery is observing Vincent's unwavering success in pulling women. There seems little prospect of change. But then events conspire otherwise .

Synopsis

On a blazing hot day in London two unlikely friends set out on a mission. Smiggy is an idiotic show-off who claims to have been in the army. Philip is a simple yet well-meaning supermarket shelf-stacker whose one ambition is to avenge his brother, who was left in a permanent vegetative state after a senseless attack by the psychopathic Darrel. On the day Darrel is released from jail, Philip and Smiggy set out to track him down, armed with the only weapon they can afford, a rusty old revolver which may or may not be loaded. Unfortunately there are some holes in the ever-confident Smiggy's plans. He doesn't know that the Notting Hill Carnival starts today and that Darrel's foul-mouthed sexpot fiancée Julie is hoarding a large amount of stolen cocaine. Most importantly, Smiggy doesn't know about the effects of taking pure cocaine for the first time. With the arrival of a drug-dealer from Reigate, a posse of angry Yardies and a crazed traffic warden, the scene is set for a very messy showdown as Philip and Smiggy determinedly try to deliver rough justice amongst the chaos.

Synopsis

Liam is growing up in an Irish Catholic quarter of Liverpool in the 1930s, the youngest of three children. While he is at school trying to rid his 7-year-old head of the wicked thoughts that stand between him and the salvation of his immortal soul, his older brother is working, adding his wage packet to the household funds. Their teenage sister also does her part, cleaning for a wealthy Jewish family. Money is tight but the family is a happy one; Liam's mother is caring and devout and his father is a responsible working man, proud to be employed when so many others are not. But hard times have hit the Liverpool docks and Liam's father loses his job. Helpless, embittered and determined to find someone to blame, he joins the local fascists with tragic consequences. This is a child's-eye view of a family's free-fall into poverty during the depression, enriched by the irony and keyhole detail of a small boy's perspective.

Synopsis

Like Father portrays a family in crisis, focusing on the dislocations of grandfather, father and son. Pigeon man Arthur Elliott, a seventy-year-old whose working life in the pit gave him a strong sense of identity and pride, is losing his allotment to the local authority's coastal redevelopment scheme. Working as a trumpet player, a teacher and a club singer, running an agency for club acts, Joe Elliott, forty-years old, an ex-miner, can just about scrape a living out of his music, but he is losing his wife. Ten year old Michael Elliott, living with the pit village folklore and the wreckage of the coal industry is left to grapple with his own realities. Each of the three generations is struggling to come to terms with the past and find the ties that bind them. The three separate, but essentially integrated worlds unfold against the rich and extraordinary backdrop of East Durham landscapes and locations. Development of the film began in 1998, its dramatic content originating from actual lives and the unfolding of real events. Incorporating documentary situations, the film features strong performances from both professional and non-professional actors alike. Strongly committed to nurturing latent natural talent, Amber took the bold step of casting local people with no previous acting experience in each of the three main roles: Ned Kelly as Arthur, Joe Armstrong as Joe and Jonathan Dent as Michael. Joe Armstrong, himself an ex-miner, wrote the brass band suite which features in the film as a commission for his character Joe Elliott.

Synopsis

When a group of friends take time out from clubbing to dabble with a Ouija board, what starts out as a high-spirited prank soon dissolves into a horrific and surreal nightmare. The Ouija board spells out the message ALL DIE, suddenly the friends are involved in a series of eerie murders and doubt and terror replace the previously happy bonds of friendship. One of the group is finally forced to face up to the demons in his family's past and resurrect his own childhood memories in order to overcome the intangible dangers of his own friends' future. The killer is closing in, but is he of this world, or some place far more sinister?

Synopsis

Craig and Dean are looters. Breaking into cars and flats on the local estate, they're on a fast track to nowhere. But for Craig, an unexpected encounter is about to change all that as he begins to contemplate life only when faced with death.  

Synopsis

Two nesting couples look forward to a quiet Sunday at home. However, when Gill from upstairs invites Ashok and Hayleigh up for a cup of tea, the cracks begin to appear.

Synopsis

Lost is adapted from the second play in the trilogy Making Noise Quietly. The film centres on the meeting of a young naval officer and a grieving mother. With the Falklands War as a backdrop, the film follows Geoffrey as he meets his best friends Mother (May) and tells her the painful truth about her dead son.

Synopsis

Two unseen narrators fall in love and comment on a series of glittering images. They discover their symptoms are the same as those of Mercury poisoning. A film about science, transformation, and tragedy.