Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

Shunyata is a short political film that may appear to explore the duplicity in our democratic system but in spirit hints at the struggle faced by minorities in just about any country. It is set in Mumbai and doesn't make any direct reference to a particular individual or event but rather every single similar event since the partition of two countries due to politically fueled religious issues which have had and will continue to have severe repercussions.

The story revolves around a Muslim girl Saeeda whose husband is picked up for questioning by the police and mysteriously disappears. It's been two years but she won't give up until she knows the truth. She forms a special father-daughter relationship with a police inspector who thinks he's helping her in her quest but doesn't realize that he will ultimately destroy her by leading her to the very people who brutally murdered her husband.

Synopsis

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.
 

Synopsis

From BAFTA award winning director, Chris Menaul, comes the story of Mozart's definitive romantic comedy. A school for lovers must learn that when words fail, only music can speak to the heart.

Adam, a rich industrialist aspires to a more cultured world. Spurred on by playful jibes that he’s little more than a city suit living the capitalist's dream, this frustrated amateur opera singer decides to put on an opera in his lavish country retreat. Once his friends see him belting out the notes, he feels sure it will spell the end to their shallow taunts. It might even help him win the hand of Celia, the female conductor he has been pursuing and is the first to be recruited for his showpiece.

As for the other major roles and the production, Adam brings in the pros. A troupe of sexy, young singers with enough collective sexual tension to literally light up the stage. The opera they will be performing is Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, the master composer's fabled romp through the bittersweet themes of sexual infidelity. As the disparate group begins to rehearse, it isn’t long before life starts to replicate art and their relationships flourish and flounder.

Synopsis

A bullied teenage schoolboy teams up with two misfits to defeat the bully and win a girls heart in a classic tale of overcoming the monster. 'Napoleon Dynamite' meets 'The Goonies', in an 80s kid's comedy with a 21st century twist.

Synopsis

Skeletons is a surrealist comedy about two travelling salesmen in the business of cleaning skeletons out of people's closets.

Synopsis

A group of twentysomething friends hang out in the rich neighbourhoods of the sleepy capital city of Islamabad, Pakistan. Hasan flirts with both filmmaking dreams, as well as with secret crush Aisha. But a daily routine of driving around town with his cocky, status-obsessed buddy Sheryar could prevent Hasan from escaping the existential bubble he is trapped in.

Synopsis

Sleep Furiously is set in a small farming community in mid Wales, about 50 miles north of Dylan Thomas’ fictional village of Llareggub, a place where Koppel’s parents – both refugees – found a home. This is a landscape and population that is changing rapidly as small scale agriculture is disappearing and the generation who inhabited a pre-mechanised world is dying out.

The central character in the film is John Jones who, once-a-month, drives the library van around the Trefeurig community, from farm to farm, collecting and delivering books. This bright yellow van becomes both literally and metaphorically a vehicle of stories – stories which take us on a poetic and profound journey into a world of endings and beginnings; a world of stuffed owls, sheep and fire. Allied to a soundtrack by the revered electronic musician Aphex Twin Sleep Furiously has been described as 'lyrical film making at its best'.

Synopsis

Four ex-criminals down on their luck come together for once last job. But personal relationships, addictions and revenge are never far behind.

Synopsis

Smith is terrorised by a gang of youths until one night he rediscovers the man he once was.

Synopsis

April 2003, three weeks after the fall of Saddam. A journey through Iraq, a troubled land where no one knows what lies ahead. On hearing the news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, a curious young boy Ahmed and his obstinate grandmother set out to uncover the fate of the boy's missing father, one of the many soldiers who never came home since the gulf war 1991.

From the mountains of the North to the sands of Babylon, the pair hitch rides with strangers and cross paths with fellow pilgrims on an all too similar quest. As a grandmother struggles to accept an awful truth, Ahmed retraces the footsteps of a father he never knew. This is a journey that will not only connect them to the past, but will determine their lives forever.

Synopsis

A story inspired by a set of wardrobe photographs Kubrick took for a movie he never made creates the backdrop for a relationship between two women to develop and be explored. Kristina is an actress. Esma is the costume designer. Kristina and Esma have a lot in common first and second-generation refugees from war torn areas of Europe. As we delve into their pasts, through a series of flashbacks, we unravel the hardship they have been through, the difficulty they have in connecting with their current environments and the similarities between them.

Synopsis

SSDD: Same Sh*t Different Day is a slice of life in the east end of London following Lee (Samuel Anokye), recently released from prison, and Phil (Richard Oldham), a squatter and former rioter, who both work night shift together.
 
Retaining both a social realist approach and a comedy delivery, the film is set to the backdrop of the recession in contemporary Britain, executed on a shoestring budget and marking a mature step forward for critically acclaimed auteur Greg Hall (The Plague, Kapital).