James has learnt to be withdrawn and secretive in a family with long buried secrets.
Lonely and confused, he is drawn to one of his schoolteachers, Mr Sutherland, focusing on him as the one person who might understand his inner turmoil. When an older man approaches him in a public toilet, James panics and calls his mother, but refuses to tell her what happened. Late that night, James listens to his parents arguing about him. His fathers offhanded dismissal of his mothers concern results in a vicious row. When a devastated James turns to Mr Sutherland for help, the teachers response leads James to take an irrevocable step.
Written and Directed by the creators of Shank, Darren Flaxstone and Christian Martin, Release is a love story that thematically explores the hypocrisy that society thrives on and which fuels prejudice and hatred. Emotionally rich and varied the story seeks to touch upon the honesty of true love and the deception of ideology, theology and morality.
Father Jack Gillie (Daniel Brocklebank) enters prison a guilty man, convicted for a crime that sees the Church abandon him, his congregation desert him and his faith challenged. His fellow inmates believe he's been convicted of paedophilia and begin to plant the seed of doubt into the mind of his teenage cellmate, Rook (Wayne Virgo). After rescuing Rook from a beating Jack now becomes the inmates prey. Protection comes in the unlikely form of a prison officer, Martin (Garry Summers) with whom Jack falls in love and together they embark on a dangerous and illicit affair behind cell doors. As trust forms between the two men so Jack feels enabled to confess the truth behind the crime for which he has been imprisoned. Emboldened by Jack's honesty the two men plan their lives together post Jack's release.
Prison gang leader Max (Bernie Hodges), however has ulterior objectives and sets about ruining this relationship and manipulates the Governess, Heather (Dymphna Skehill), into suspending Martin for misconduct after disclosing the affair. Alone and vulnerable Jack is now tormented and hunted by Max who takes revenge on him for his crime.
Waking from the near fatal actions of Max, Jack keeps his head down and bides his time comforted by letters of love and support from Martin - delivered with disgust and loathing by one of Martin's colleagues. With the end of his sentence in sight Jack readies himself for a new life and a new beginning with Martin. The only obstacle to this tabula rasa remains Max and Father Elliott (Dave Jones) the Church's messenger sent to establish what Jack's intentions are once free.
Sidney Turtlebaum is a bitter sweet comedy and cautionary tale set in present day Golders Green, the heart of London's Jewish community.
Sidney Turtlebaum is an eccentric gay Jewish man in his eighties. To punish the world which rejected him, Sidney earns his living as a pickpocket and a conman. His chosen modus operandi is to read through the recent death notices in the London Jewish Post identifying Shiva houses of mourning in order to steal from the gathered crowd.
More than just a thief, Sidney is a performer and revels in the opportunity to take centre stage capturing the assembled mourners with his anecdotes and nostalgic songs.
When Sidney earns the respect and curiosity of 26 year old Gabriel he decides to take him to his next Shiva home thus opening up his strange world to the innocent eyes of his young new friend.
A poetic and controversial journey into the rarely seen world of vampires and other blood-loving creatures.
Featuring:
5 shades of red
4 lovers
3 erotic nightmares
2 vampires
1 snake
The Lovers and Fighters Convention tells the story of one night at London's legendary Transfabulous Arts Festival. In the wake of the Queen signing into law The Gender Recognition Act in the mid-noughties, a community developed of people who wanted to recognise a new culture in the UK, a culture of 'transness' - artistic work that developed around gender.
The Transfabulous Arts Festival became a lightning rod for these ideas. This observational documentary shows just one night at this festival in 2008.
The bride and groom to be arrive at the hotel to finalise the details for their wedding. During the meeting with the wedding arranger (the fourth emergency service) things take a turn for the different.
8.5 Hours is an intense, contemporary drama about one day in the working lives of four software workers in Dublin. On one particular Monday, each of the characters finds their lives are in turmoil and each undergoes a gruelling series of events between the hours of 9 to 5.30, the 8.5 hours of the title.
Set in and around the women’s prison at Millbank in the 1870s, Affinity is an eerie and utterly compelling ghost story, a complex and intriguing mystery and a poignant love story with an unexpected twist in the tale. Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London’s most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prison's more unlikely inmates – the imprisoned spiritualist Selina Dawes who weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud, or a prodigy? Sympathetic to the plight of the innocent-seeming Selina, Margaret sees herself dispensing guidance and perhaps friendship on her visits, little expecting to find herself dabbling in a twilight world of séances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions. By the time it all begins to matter the viewer will find themselves desperately wanting to believe in the magic.
A sequel to 1976's The Naked Civil Servant, An Englishman in New York tells the story of Quentin Crisp's years in self-imposed exile in New York until his death in 1999.
Francis is an account of the creation of a 9-year-old 'defective' animated character. As the draughtsman’s hand goes to work and Francis attains animated consciousness, his behaviour is observed and assessed by a child psychologist. The boy’s responses – initially slow and apparently flawed – develop in unusual comic directions as the examination progresses.
As his vocalisations begin to address the nature of his animated world and the psychologist continues to try and interpret his actions, it appears that Francis may ‘break out’ once and for all and become a ‘real’ animated character. Francis playfully addresses notions of construction and the role that language plays in interpreting, classifying and creating certain types. In an animated world populated by impressionable idiot figures, mischief-makers and oddballs with strange vocal mannerisms, Francis puts the cute but simple cartoon character into therapy for a case study of 'animated behaviour'.
