Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Room to Rent is a bitter sweet comedy about Ali, a young Egyptian screen-writer determined to succeed in London. He loves the artistic and political freedom, the colours, the music and the individualism. But Britain isn't an easy place for a foreigner to break through. No-one takes his work seriously and he has to scrape an illegal living in 'Arab' London as a waiter and Arabic voice over artist. With his student visa about to expire and a highly unsatisfactory relationship with married Vivienne, a French woman who more or less pays him to have sex, life is not easy. On the same day his visa extension is refused, a strange old blind woman accosts him on a train, plus he has a fight with his landlord and his thrown out of his lodgings. His friend Ahmed, a street wise hustler, thinks Ali should scrape together £3000 and buy a passport by entering into a fake marriage with a British woman - supplied with Ahmed if he wants to stay. With little money, a student visa and no home, Ali sees no alternative. However, a series of relationships in different London 'rooms to rent' soon have a major impact on his future . . .     It was when writer-director Khaled El Hagar was doing voiceover work for Gillies Mackinnon's Hideous Kinky that he realised its star, Said Taghmaoui, would be an ideal lead in the film he was developing with producer Ildiko Kemeny. Taghmaoui was enthusiastic. "It's not every day that a juicy lead role for an Arabic actor comes along," he says. With Taghmaoui's name attached Kemeny was able to find a French co-producer, Marina Gefter of Paris-based IMA. StudioCanal, already co-producing Kemeny's Hotel Splendide, also came on board as sales agent. Inspired by El Hagar's own experiences living in London, the bittersweet comedy tells the story of Egyptian writer Ali, who is struggling to stay afloat in London as his visa runs out. His only hope of staying on is to find a British woman who is willing to marry him. The trouble is fake marriages cost money, something Ali is a little short of. Finding somewhere to live is also far from straightforward. Along the way he encounters photographer Mark (Rupert Graves), an unstable young woman Linda (Juliette Lewis), whom Ali falls in love with, and ageing faith healer Miss Stevenson (Anna Massey), who thinks he is the reincarnation of her Egyptian lover. Room To Rent is El Hagar's first English-language film. His debut feature Little Dreams screened to critical acclaim at several international festivals, including Rotterdam and Birmingham.

Synopsis

The two main characters' adventures, which range from petty theft and onwards, are captured on a stolen camera. A film for the voyeur in you.

Synopsis

When misanthrope Russell Square falls under a tube train he thinks his troubles are over. However, finding that he has fallen into a bizarre nowhere called The Gap, inhabited by an Angel called Islington, he realises that his troubles have only just begun.

Synopsis

When seven-year-old Davy is trapped inside his home with the man who nearly killed his mother, he is forced to fight back. Fuelled by fear he grabs the opportunity to retaliate with the only weapons he has at his disposal - the shiny new keys he wears around his neck.

Synopsis

Award-winning playwright Conor McPherson steps behind the camera for the first time with Saltwater, a tale of ordinary folk in extraordinary circumstances. In an out-of-season coastal town in Ireland, the local chippie is on the verge of going under. Ever since his mother's death, Frank (Peter McDonald) has been helping his father (Brian Cox) hold the fort. But dad is in hock to the local bookie and loan shark (Brendan Gleeson) so Frank takes matters into his own hands and robs the bookie. Needless to say, things don't quite go as planned. Inspired by a dream McPherson had several years ago, the film began as a stage play called This Lime Tree Bower, which took the form of a series of monologues from the three main characters: Frank, his younger brother Joe, who feels his mother's absence the most, and Ray, a university tutor who is in love with the brothers' older sister. McPherson then teamed up with producer Robert Walpole, who, along with his directing partner Paddy Breathnach, had turned his first screenplay, I Went Down, into an award-winning hit film. Saltwater went into production just as McPherson's acclaimed play The Weir was earning raves on Broadway in New York. The film world-premiered in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival in February where audience reaction was favourable. It had its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July and will open in Ireland through Buena Vista in September.

Synopsis

Frank For Frank Beneventi - an anally retentive twenty-something who nags and fusses over his dad as if they were man and wife - Saltwater is the story of his emancipation. Desperate to rescue his father from the jaws of local loan shark Simple Simon, Frank calls upon internal resources of courage and complete stupidity to pull of an 'armed' heist which changes his life forever. Joe Four years after the death of their mother, Frank's younger brother Joe is still very much grieving. Of the Beneventi children, sixteen-year-old Joe feels his mother's absence the deepest. Bored and unhappy at school, he's easy prey for another lost teen: Damien Fitzgibbon, a destructive and damaged boy with his own demons. Joe is thrilled by Damien's antics. The he stumbles across his new friend having sex with an unconscious girl in a graveyard. Ray Ray, meanwhile, is in love with the boys' older sister Carmel Beneventi. And embroiled in a passionate fling with Debbie, a shapely blonde student with a fondness for knee-high boots. Carmel - and her family - represent a day-to-day reality that Ray's arcane university job never comes close to touching: the Beneventis are a world away from the whiny students and horny academics of his day-job. But it's not until an eminent philosopher arrives at the university and Ray has a run in with one of Debbie's desperate suitors that he has to make some hard choices about where his live is going. And who he's going to take with him. Saltwater is the coming-of-age story of three very different men. Through a robbery, a rape and a really terrible hangover Frank, Joe and Ray learn things about themselves that they probably didn't want to know. And nothing, as they tend to say, will be the same again.

Synopsis

Joan and JD thought they had found the perfect place to live, a home by the sea on a remote shore of Northern Ireland. But their nostalgic memories of Ireland soon fade with the reality of living in a small community with traditional values. A poignant tale with a universal message.

Synopsis

Set mid/late 19th century, this is the story of a troubled and downtrodden youth. He lives with his father, a bed-ridden invalid, who embittered forces Samuel to wait on him, hand and foot. After years of this, Samuel tends to indulge in morbid and violent fantasies about his father. During a fantasy Samuel falls into the clutches of evil, manipulating nemesis, Reuben Wise. Under his influence Samuel's fantasies become reality.

Synopsis

A young woman stuck in limbo looks to do a deal with God.

Synopsis

Dogz, an angst-ridden Asian lad, strikes out at the turbulance of urban teenage life. Traditional Indian family culture clashes with the British Asian way of life and Dogz seeks comfort in football, crime and solitude.

Synopsis

Saving Grace is a feel-good romp which gives a modern spin on Ealing Studios-style comedy. Widowed and penniless after her husband's suicide, Grace (Brenda Blethyn) is left with massive debts and no obvious salvation, until her dope-smoking gardener Craig Ferguson (the film's co-writer) asks for the use of her green fingers to nurse his marijuana plant back to life. Sweeping aside any moral qualms and attracted to the swift return on investment, a desperate Grace launches into mass production, which brings her into conflict with the conservative local community, drug lords in London and the police. The film was the brainchild of Mark Crowdy, the writer-producer whose credits include The Mystery Of Edwin Drood and the recently-completed Sorted. He was introduced to comic actor Craig Ferguson by Cat Villiers, who became executive producer. They spent almost four years re-writing the screenplay, during which time the film's financing fell through a couple of times. A medley of European players eventually provided backing. Director Nigel Cole, best known for the television series Cold Feet, says the challenge was finding the right tone: "The script screamed Ealing comedy so much, it was my job to play against that. I felt that if I made it as modern as possible, the traditional British comedy in the script would come through." The film won the audience award at this year's Sundance Film Festival, grossed £1.9m in the UK and was released in the US in August by Fine Line.

Synopsis

Grace Trevethan's idyllic life on the Cornish coast is turning upside down. Faced with her husband's untimely death, a mountain of debt, a former mistress and the prospect of losing her beautiful manor house - Grace decides to put her greenfingers to work. Desperate times call for desperate measures and with a little prompting from her now under-employed gardener Matthew, Grace swaps her price orchids for marijuana. Together they convert her state-of-the-art greenhouse into what she hopes will be their goldmine and salvation. Valuable as marijuana is, it's not a currency the bank recognises! So Grace leaves the safety of her Cornish village to sell her produce to the menacing underworld of London's Notting Hill. The pressures of her new found enterprise begin to catch up with her, with gangsters, debt collectors and the police now in hot pursuit. Will Grace Trevethan, fine upstanding member of the local community turn drug dealer - surely not? Nigel cole's hilarious, heart-warming comedy drama Saving Grace, is an ensemble film based around a wonderful central performance from Brenda Blethyn and set against a backdrop of some of Britain's most spectacular scenery.