Projects in genres: Woman Director

Synopsis

By 2050, lifestyle is designed by the Corporate State. Unhealthy food, obesity, famine and war are illegal.   Martin Dwyer, a mid-level executive, reports to the Head Office for a routine review. Instead, he is invited up to the top floor, the Executive Floor.

Synopsis

A personal journey to the Caribbean island of Trinidad exploring carnival, catholicism and homosexuality.

Synopsis

Commissioned by Carlton TV as part of the First Cut 2003 series.   A day in the life of an historic English city park. In sunlight the green and pleasant place is a leafy haven for all sorts of harmless pastimes.   But as darkness descends a more threatening character emerges.

Synopsis

Alarm bells are beginning to ring and storm clouds are bearing down on the brilliant future of Adrian, the new teenage pop idol. Showing no respect or loyalty for his newly gained millionaire status, his old friends, neighbours, a fat ex-girlfriend and his pain in the neck of a brother threaten to reveal seedy details of his private life, hoping in return to receive the benefits from selling the exclusive rights of a bombshell article. After all, they want to live comfortably too. But Adrian doesn't want them to live at all. Accompanied by his "artistic" girlfriend, the gorgeous Amaretto, and followed closely by an intrepid gossip journalist, Adrian sends all  his acquaintances to a remote island in the Caribbean for a crazy holiday, which he hopes will be their last.

Synopsis

An ancient tale retold, of a city under siege and the terrible action taken by one woman to save it.   The city elders are prepared to surrender, but Judith has other ideas. From the battlements she has watched Holofernes, the enemy general, and now she plans revenge and triumph. When they meet in his camp, they discover more complex desires and needs in each other, and during one night work out a passionate and dangerous relationship. By dawn Judith is victorious, but it is a bitter victory.   Does patriotrism justify any action? Is Judith a hero or a maniac? Is Holofernes oppressor or victim? Is this a story about the sexiness of war or the savagery of sex? Can violence ever generate peace, or does it just keep the brutal cycles of war, defeat, victory and reprisal circling forever?

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A character study of the relationship between a professional poker playing mother and her film making daughter, set against the backdrop of the World Series of Poker. 

Synopsis

The big day has arrived - everything is planned. He's going to propose to his girlfriend - it will be the perfect day. But when he sees her at the station, he sees a bizarre man who keeps appearing, seemingly to no-one but him. Turning this into a hell of a day!

Synopsis

An old lady remembers the journey she made as a newly-wed from England to Czechoslovakia in 1945.

Synopsis

Riva is the portrait of a woman, Riva Ben Eliezer, now ninety years old. How do you look at the life of someone who has lived through so much? I would look at her hands, wrinkled and old, and think, these are the hands that did all those things, that were communist in Palestine, that were imprisoned and tortured, that bore children and a great and terrible war, that lived in Siberia, that taught kindergarten, that wrote books. These hands, no other, did this, and this is what they look like now. This is what time and life has done to my grandmother's hands.   But the film is more than that. It is more than a portrait of a woman who lived through extraordinary times, who was a Jew in a place and time when there was nothing and nowhere worse to be. It is the portrait of a whole life, not just the sections that have the most drama. It is the portrait of her now - for now contains all her past, somehow, in her hands and in her face. In her voice and especially in her laugh.   It is a private film made for the public. The use of hand processed images, with their patina of blotches and scratches, creats a space for Riva to exist, where the presentation of her ninety-year-old body is not intrusive but respectful. It is a private film also because it was made in private, just me and her, so our relationship becomes a part of it.   It is not my intention with this film to deify Riva. Just to show her, as I see her, because it is important to see the lives of others, lives that have been deeply lived, as Riva's has.

Synopsis

An ironic look at the way newspapers report children's deaths, accidents, bad mothers, angry fathers and the bogeyman. Based on the film maker's archive of newspaper clippings, these are terrible stories that make great copy. With an inventive mix of still photography and live action, the film sweeps around Britain to create a chilling comment on death, news reporting and the family.

Synopsis

The humdrum lives of four women are transformed by the arrival of Italian femme fatale, Sophia Rosselini and her School for Seduction.   For Clare, Irene and sisters Kelly and Donna the 'School for Seduction' is a much needed break from reality, promising much - how to be sexy, seductive and in control.   Initially the course is simply great fun and the women are unleashed on their unsuspecting partners with comic, sometimes uncomfortable but often-hilarious results.   However, all appears to be shattered with the arrival of Sophia's estranged husband and a shocking revelation.

Synopsis

Sam is happiest when he's scooting.   While his mother negotiates the pitfalls of a broken marriage, Sam has a special way of escaping to 'his own magical world'. But only if two wheels are on the ground.