Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Nineteen year old Iris thinks she can handle her mother's untimely death. She doesn't understand why her older sister Rose is so upset. Surely life goes on, and in order to prove this Iris leaves her boyfriend Gary and moves into a bedsit.
In her new home, she begins to transform herself by dressing up in her mother's wig, fur coat and sunglasses. A new sexually confident Iris emerges and she begins to haunt the streets and clubs of Liverpool, picking up men. Iris thinks that she is in control, that she is having fun. However, her increasingly manic behaviour is exacerbated by her combative relationship with her older sister Rose. The two sisters have always competed for their mother's attentions and her sudden death brings to the surface their feelings of jealousy and rivalry. Iris becomes increasingly estranged from her sister, her friends and her ex-boyfriend, who is trying to win her back.

Synopsis

Steve is 24 and lives on a council estate. Sophie, Steve's girlfriend, is more fortunate, but is naively excited by Steve. So when Steve shows Sophie and a mutual friend Pete, a handgun, her excitement grows. Pete is an easily influenced 23 year old, who follows Steve. But when he sees the gun, he gets scared. The gun is for a reason.

Synopsis

After her mum disappears in mysterious circumstances, Lorna grows up with a fascination for the unexplained. She and her boyfriend, Gordon, set off together in search of the truth.

Synopsis

Unmade Beds is a black comedy about vanity and desire in modern America. Set in the sexual jungle of the New York singles scene, two men and two women frantically pursue their impossible dreams. Equipped with ample provisions of self-delusion, misogyny, anti-semitism and homophobia, Brenda, Michael, Aimee and Mikey are on the road to heterosexual fiasco.





Barker hired a research staff who combed New York for potential characters. Their search led them deep into the New York singles scene. They attended singles events, played the personals, and ran ads in the back page of the New York Press. Disguised as singles on the prowl, they canvassed bars and cafes in Manhattan's diverse neigh-bourhoods, until they found the 'cast'.





Employing his unique brand of 'real-fiction' Barker then directed his 'cast' under feature film conditions during the summer, fall and winter of 1996-97. During this period he wrote and rewrote his script in response to the unfolding events in their lives. 'I'd say 90% of the script was based on the actual behaviour and language of the four principal characters' says Barker. 'The rest is a pack of lies'.

Synopsis

The British career of an American sports therapist is going nowhere, in fact it has ground to a halt and he contemplates a return to the United States. Young widow, Suzanne, is the proud mother of underachiever, Ben and six year old Natalie. Whilst she worries about Ben, her friends worry about her and frequently meet to confer on her future and find her a new romance. Meanwhile friend and philanderer, Frank, a dentist who practices hypno-therapy, uses this method to further his chances with Suzanne. However, in the tradition of all the best romantic comedies, nothing goes according to plan...

Synopsis

Tord is a 16 year old who spends most of his time watching films, TV and playing computer games and fantasizing. In his daydreams he can do virtually anything: be a popular comedian, star in a new Die Hard film and pick up the girl of his dreams. While his friends go to the hottest disco in town and pick up girls, Tord can do nothing but daydream about the same things. But all this is about to change when he meets Marvin....

Synopsis

The state of society now is caricatured in a well-to-do but dysfunctional family contrasting sharply with the smoothly operating society of wasps in a nest over their heads. Wasps is a film about insects, infestations, nervous energy, control, chaos and untimely extinction.

Synopsis

A chance reunion in a cafe; a remembrance of a childhood acquaintance set against a vivid landscape of recollection.

Synopsis

In this richly funny London-based romantic comedy, a young female barrister takes on an arrrogant defence lawyer in a high-profile case, only for them to fall unexpectedly in love with each other.

Synopsis

Filmed on the streets of Glasgow, When I'm 21, is a short documentary that touches on the hopes and objectives of seven dispossessed young people.

Synopsis

The work of one of Wales' greatest story writers has been adapted into a full-length feature film. Y MYNYDD GRUG (The Heather Mountain) is based on Dr Kate Roberts' classic volume 'Te yn y Grug'.





The framework is a simple story: a year in the life of an 8 year old girl called Begw, who lives in a cottage on the quarry-mining uplands in Caernarfonshire, North Wales, at the turn of the century. From winter to winter, from snow to snow, Begw's experience of life deepens, and her imagination as a budding author matures. Coinciding with Begw's story, as a background to and underlying the whole film, is a portrait of the hard mountain people, the chapel-goers and the rough-necks, the whole close-knit community which struggles to live on the stark slopes of the Heather Mountain.

Synopsis

Yellow explores that disturbing combination of naiveté and power possessed by pre-pubescent children. When the car breaks down next to a rape field on a family outing, Natalie, a seven year old girl, takes the car keys and disappears into the sea of yellow flowers. When her mother's boyfriend follows, he finds himself far from the road confronting a naked girl and a deeply uncomfortable situation reaches a climax.