Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend.
Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents.
As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.
Moving between the vast enclaves of Middle Eastern high society and the stunning backdrop of London's West End, I Can't Think Straight explores the clashes between East and West, love and marriage, conventions and individuality, creating a humorous and tender story of unexpected love and unusual freedoms.
James has learnt to be withdrawn and secretive in a family with long buried secrets.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.
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.
