Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

In the run up to Christmas a 15-year-old boy whose mother is involved in a serious car accident, has a dream that she needs an angel's halo to be saved.

Synopsis

My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times' from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.

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Set in a border town in rural Scotland, Native Son is about a troubled farm labourer struggling with loneliness and the need for human contact.

Synopsis

Night. Shelter. Howling sounds interrupt the silence. Les, unable to sleep, takes action.

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A young couple break into an abandoned school. Strangers to one another they struggle to achieve the intimacy they desire.

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One man’s life spirals into uncertainty when the answer to all of his financial worries is placed at his feet.

Continuing down the path he has chosen, Peter is forced to ask himself whether ‘opportunity’ is all it really seems.

Synopsis

Imagine if London was controlled by the military and you had to go through specific checkpoints to go to school, go to work, visit your friends or go to the hospital.

No Way Through brings the shocking reality of Palestinian life in the West Bank uncomfortably close to home.

Synopsis

Nora is based on true stories of the dancer Nora Chipaumire, who was born in Zimbabwe in 1965. In the film, Nora returns to the landscape of her childhood and takes a journey through some vivid memories of her youth. Using performance and dance, she brings her history to life in a swiftly-moving poem of sound and image. The result is a film about family dramas, difficult love affairs and militant politics, which moves back and forth between the comic and the tragic, the joyful and the mournful. It is a film about a girl who is constantly embattled - struggling against all kinds of intimidation and violence - but who slowly gathers strength, pride and independence.

Shot entirely on location in Southern Africa, Nora includes a multitude of local performers and dancers of all ages, from young schoolchildren to ancient grandmothers, and much of the music is specially composed by a legend of Zimbabwean music - Thomas Mapfumo.

Synopsis

Imagine John Lennon's childhood.

A lonely teenager, curious and sharp, growing up in the shattered city of Liverpool.

Two incredible women clash for his love. Mimi, the formidable aunt who raised him and Julia, the spirited mother who gave him up.

Yearning for a normal family, John escapes into music. His fledgling genius finds a kindred spirit in the young Paul McCartney.

But just as John's new life begins, the truth about his past leads to a tragedy he would never escape.

Synopsis

O CORO (The Chorus) is a drama that follows the lives of four characters during the rehearsal of a Symphonic Orchestra in the south of Brazil.

Paulo, the orchestra conductor struggles to realize his project despite the poor health condition of his mother who is in a hospital; Antonia is a divorced and lonely woman in search of meaning in her life; Salomon, a lyric singer, is unsatisfied with his life and is always waiting for a mysterious Mr Beckett; Francisca is a suicidal young woman searching for an escape in the world of classic music.

With subtleness and poetry the movie shows a true portrait of the society in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba, depicting the existential conflicts of the characters and the way art has brought them together and may even redeem them.

Synopsis

Off Season is an understated story about a widowed dad who has brought his young son for a visit with Gran on the grey, windy coast. After causing a bizarre accident, he tries to protect his son from a truth they both already know.

Synopsis

A darkly comic tale of a young man's battle with madness. Ollie Kepler, wacky astronomy enthusiast and web designer, moves in with his best friend after he loses his fiance, but is repeatedly drawn back to the place of her death; their unpainted apartment. There, a broken promise made to her returns to haunt him with growing ferocity.

Ollie's guilt merges with his scientific brilliance into a frantic attempt to redeem himself. Quitting his job in a bizarre act of defiance, Ollie spirals into a chilling world of obsession and tormenting voices, threatening both his friendship and sanity. Convinced that a strange piece of rock he has found is a micro-chip which holds a vital message from his fiance, Ollie sets about trying to unlock the chip with disastrous results. Somehow purple holds the key.

Disturbing and eerily humorous, the film explores the fantasies the mind creates when reality overwhelms.