Based on an early 17th century collection of fairy tales by Neopolitan author Giambattista Basile, the film weaves realistic and fantastical elements together in a dark exploration of classic tales.
From the bitter quest of a jealous Queen, to an Ogre thwarting the love of a young princess, to a mysterious woman provoking the passion of a King, these stories weave the beautiful with the grotesque, creating a stunning and unique work of gothic imagination.
Official Selection Cannes 2015 - In Competition
“Two birds flying high”
The flower of carnage is a traditional 2D short animation that is based on the story of the willow plate. It’s a forbidden love story that is created using both blue ink and nail varnish onto acetate sheets. The ink maintains the fluidity of the animation.
A successful young couple’s sheltered, affluent world is shattered when they each make a decision to neglect the needs of a vulnerable teenage girl. The husband exploits her, and the wife, unaware of her husband's actions, fails to respond to the girl's plight. When the girl invades their luxurious country home and scares the pregnant wife, the repercussions of their actions weigh heavily on their consciences, leading to traumatic reassessments of themselves, their relationship and the wider world around them.
With debts piling up and a baby on the way, Jimmy’s last hope is to enter an underground boxing match, despite his girlfriend Sophie’s objections.
Determined to stop him, Sophie arrives at the ring, where she is unexpectedly confronted by her past.
A love story set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate Man escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules.
Official Selection Cannes 2015 - In Competition
A visually impaired young man awakes from unconsciousness to find the aftermath of a global catastrophe caused by environmental damage. Using his other senses he tries to come to terms with the devastation in his immediate environment. An eco-disaster short that shows the effects on an urban household.
Springtime. Fred and Mick, two old friends now approaching eighty, are on vacation together in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a film director, is still working. The two friends know that their time is quickly running out, and they decide to face their future together. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children’s confused lives, Mick’s enthusiastic young writers, and the other hotel guests, all of whom, it seems, have all the time that they lack. And while Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important film, Fred, who gave up his musical career long ago, has no intention of returning to it. But someone wants at all costs to hear his compositions and to see him conduct again.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Journey Strand
The story of independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), who attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a sheep farmer; Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), a reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), a prosperous and mature bachelor.
UK Release April 2015
"Belfast, it’s a city that is changing, changing because the people are leaving? But one came back, a 10,000 year old woman who claims that she is the city itself." Mark Cousins.
A unique film about an infamous place, with this 10,000 year old woman as our free spirited walking tour guide. Starting in the here and now, with the everyday, we move on to the dream life of the city, mapping the voices of women and the liminal spaces, the unnoticed and the unloved things about this place. But she also looks back and she sees the tragedy and the horror of what went before. She remembers everything… 'I Am Belfast' highlights Mark Cousins’ influences, inherently cinematic, but all the while underscored by the influence of the grandparents, the mothers, the brothers and the women of the city he comes from.
Belfast Film Festival 2015 - World premiere
'The Survivalist' is the near future story of a man eking out a meagre existence on a secluded smallholding deep in the forest. When a starving woman and her teenage daughter discover his farm, his loneliness drives him to strike a bargain with them in return for bed and board. But as desire becomes stronger than necessity, the exchange becomes an uneasy, ongoing arrangement which threatens not only his carefully constructed world but also his life.
