Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

In the pressure cooker of a Friday afternoon commuter train, scruffy strangers strike up an edgy rapport. But when they hit on the subject of homosexuality, the darkly comic conversation careers out of control.

Synopsis

A portrait of a child painted on a sheet of glass. There is a barely discernible change in the child's eyes. Slowly the child focuses towards the direction of the audience. There is an uneasy confrontation between the portrait and the audience.

Synopsis

A romantic undertaker is in love with his female barber. He is shocked to find the image of her face printed in the eyes of a young male corpse. His jealousy brings their business relationship to a close, and an unusual solution is found to his unrequited love.

Synopsis

When an undertaker sees the image of his secret obsession embedded in a dead man's retina, he decides to make her his final and everlasting image.

Synopsis

Following Brassed Off and Little Voice, Purely Belter is director Mark Herman's third film to be rooted firmly in the North of England - in this case Newcastle. And like his two critically-lauded hits, it uses a comic energy to tackle serious, gritty reality. "That is his talent as a director - taking ordinary people and successfully combining the comedy and tragedy that make up their lives," says producer Elizabeth Karlsen, who also worked with Herman on Little Voice. The film, based on Gateshead teacher Jonathan Tulloch's debut novel The Season Ticket, follows two Geordie lads whose wild ambition is to get season tickets for their football team, Newcastle United. Gerry (Chris Beattie) and Sewell (Greg McLane) are broke but they are also resourceful, devising schemes and scams in their attempts to raise the £1,000 they need. However, real life - Gerry's violent dad, Sewell's pregnant girlfriend - keeps getting in the way. "Football does form the backbone of the story, but it is less a film about football than a film about the boys' dream," says Herman. "It captures the spirit of being a working-class teenager on Tyneside," adds Kevin Whately, who plays the boys' teacher. DoP Andy Collins helped catch the energy of the story - and of the two young unknowns playing the leads - by using a lot of natural light and shooting with a hand-held camera on a dolly. Purely Belter, the first film from Mumbo Jumbo, was selected to screen in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes this year.

Synopsis

quadrature/n. 1. Math. the process of constructing a square with an area equal to that of a figure bounded by a curve, e.g. a circle. 2. Astron. a. each of two points at which the moon is 90° from the sun as viewed from earth. b. the position of a heavenly body in relation to another 90° away.

Synopsis

A story told by a wealthy couple to their child about how an honest man arrived in a town of thieves. But it isn't a fairy story - it's the truth.

Synopsis

Set around youths in contemporary London, where cultures, class and race intermingle and influence each other freely and adopted American street style is the fashion of the day. Three teenagers, Jamie aka Rage, a rebellious rapper, Godwin (G), an introverted pianist, and Thomas (T), a forlorn DJ in search of a cause, find themselves in a slow spiral which begins to erode their bond of friendship after a botched-up attempt at a burglary fuelled by desparation. They are not professional thieves but teenagers in pursuit of a dream, to cut a hip hop record. Their failed act will sound a wake-up call which forces them to re-evaluate the true nature of their friendship, as their denied separate paths creep in. Was their dream and friendship about making a record or based on a subconscious need of helping each other on their journeys of self-discovery and awakening? Hovering in the background of our protagonists' story are Jamie's friend and mentor Marcus, an elderly Rastafarian with a flawed wisdom and a penchant for marijuana which he cannot afford, and Jamie's single mother Ellen, a young woman struggling to navigate her children through the mine-filled existence of a London council estate where the resident charismatic drug lord Pin rules supreme.

Synopsis

Pete's (Rhys Ifans) business is going bust, his sperm count is dodgy, and his relationship with Sarah (Sadie Frost) is on the rocks. He's infatuated with his secretary Charlie (Dani Behr), despite her being hitched to his bike-messenger Trevor (Andrew Howard) and he's spending too much time in Harry's (Nick Moran) coke den. In short, Pete's in trouble. Then his charming Irish accountant and boyhood pal Deeny (Joseph Fiennes) fixes up a meeting with the mysterious Russian Mr Kant (Steven Berkoff) and his 'assistant' (actually his daughter) Masha (Tara Fitzgerald). Masha and Pete get it together and Mr Kant comes over with the emergency loan. Pete is saved. But then comes the payback: Pete is summoned off the M25 by Masha, and ordered to Russia. There, he is taken in hand by Dr Jones (Keith Allen), Mr Kant's guru, made love to again by Masha - and then appears to be killed by Mr Kant's terrifying bodyguard (Olegario Fedoro) as a warning to other Western 'partners'. Meanwhile it's clear that Deeny set the whole thing up and is plotting to take over Pete's firm - indeed his whole life. However, Pete's not dead. Returning to London, he finds Sarah's pregnant and he's got to kill Deeny. The only people Pete can turn to are Charlie and Trevor. Masha is pregnant too and Mr Kant won't intervene. Pete's got a great plan, and Masha agrees to help with the greatest - and most bizarrely convincing alibi ever, but just as its all coming together Pete learns that Deeny has Sarah and Charlie at his mercy. Now Masha and Mr Kant must help and race to his aid, but Pete has to face Deeny alone, head-to-head, and right up to the final frames.

Synopsis

When producer Alison Owen first read the script for Rat, written by 65-year-old Irish writer Wesley Burrowes, she was convinced "it had been written by some post-modernist kid out of film school". An easy mistake to make given that the script she describes as a "Kafka comedy" is about a Guinness-loving man who comes home from the pub only to turn into a rat. "For me, the joke was never that a man turns into a rat, it was more the humorous potential of a clash of perspectives," says Burrowes. "You have an ordinary family to whom this tragic thing happens and the real comedy is in the way they receive it. They're immensely pragmatic, ordinary, decent people and suddenly this calamity occurs and they proceed to treat it as if it's just one of those domestic events that are upsetting... like woodworm in the furniture." Director Steve Barron signed on immediately, as did Stewart Till of Universal Pictures International. Production took place in Ireland in November 1999 with Imelda Staunton and Pete Postlethwaite in the key roles of wife and husband rat. Barron and Owen took the unusual decision to use real rather than animatronic rats. "Our film is sort of opposite to films like Stuart Little or Babe," Owen explains. "Whereas those films are all about the audience imbuing the animal with human characteristics, in Rat the characters are imbuing the rats with human personalities and the audience sees this as completely ridiculous." Rat premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh in July to great audience acclaim.

Synopsis

Imagine waking up early on your birthday, only to be confronted by your condescending boss, then you wake up again! The only thing that you are sure of is the aggression you feel towards your boss...

Synopsis

New adaption of Nevil Shute's On The Beach in which a cast of Australian actors combine a studio performance set against contemporary images of Melbourne