Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

Quentin is awoken one morning by an old school friend called John. John asks him to do him a favour and the film follows the repercussions of the favour.

Synopsis

A new type of gang has taken over the troubled violent inner cities of the U.K. Tired of hopeless government initiatives and bad policing, younger more focused activists respond by creating their own community infrastructure, gaining a formidable reputation protecting their neighbourhoods from social and moral collapse.
 
When a meeting is called in Manchester attended by all of the gang members, the idea of uniting all of the gangs as one single all-powerful confederation is presented.
 
Through the eyes of The Purifiers, a collection of smart, sassy, highly skilled exponents of Tae Kwon Do, we see how this proposal goes against the grain of everything they stand for. The rest of the gangs know, however, that to make the new way a real possibility, they must get rid of The Purifiers.
 
The story becomes a gauntlet of ambushes and spectacular set pieces where gang leader John has to call on all of his experience to get his young troops safely back home.
 
An explosive, volatile, unknown terrain faces The Purifiers as their journey becomes an emotional and physical roller coaster with potentially fatal consequences.

Synopsis

'The Republic of Love' is a warm hearted love story set in a cold city, a paradox that explores all the issues, dilemmas and barriers facing the lucky and unlucky in love in the 21st century.

Synopsis

An unemployed swashbuckler despairs of ever taking to the waves again in this peculiar bittersweet comedy.

Synopsis

Every house tells a story; it can reveal a lot about its owner, but what does this one say?

Synopsis

Why is Sara not talking to Bill? Why doesn't Bill stop talking to Sara? What could have happened at the dinner party the night before?
Is Lucy at the bottom of it? Maybe it's something to do with Eddie?
Surely Beth's in the clear? Oh, and did someone hit Bill? It looks like somebody hit him.
 
Whatever happened, Sara's not telling.
 

Synopsis

The Statement shines a light on some of the darkest corners of the religious and political establishment. Set in modern day France, it is the story of Pierre Brossard who, as a young man, was a war criminal under the Vichy regime. Brossard has never been brought to trial and has lived a peaceful and anonymous life sheltered by right-wing elements within the Catholic Church. A new investigation into his crimes is launched and Brossard finds himself the target of hit men on the one hand and police investigators on the other. A wily old fox, he keeps outwitting his pursuers while desperately trying to figure out who they are.

Synopsis

The Tulse Luper Suitcases is a sweeping trilogy/epic about the life and times of Tulse Luper, a man bigger than the world itself. The film covers some sixty years of recent history from 1928 when the existence of a substance called Uranium was discovered, to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1989.
 
Tulse Luper, a writer and project-maker, is caught up in a life of prisons. There are a total of sixteen prisons in the story starting in South Wales, when Luper is ten years old, locked up for three hours by his father in a coalhouse for running the gauntlet of a series of backyard gardens to sign his name on a crumbling brick wall that collapses. Twelve years later in 1938 in Moab, Utah, Luper is arrested through his contact with an American-German family about to travel to Europe to engage explotatively in the Second World War. Four members of this family, deeply fascinated with Luper, will act as his jailers, with others interested in uranium, around Europe for the next ten years. In the Cold War years he is imprisoned in Moscow and Siberia, before appearing in Hong Kong and Kyoto. In the 1980's Luper was apparently sighted in Beijing and in Shanghai. He was last seen in a Manchurian desert. Luper learns to use his prison time, writing on the prison walls, inventing projects in literature, theatre, film and painting, and engaging with his jailers in all manner of plots, schemes and adventures. Because of their responsibilities, jailers are as much prisoners of their prisoners as they are freemen, and this connection between jailer and prisoner permeates this project and provides a geat deal of its drama.
 
As Luper's reputation as a writer and project-maker grows in Europe and America, so his person becomes more fictional. A large 'Luper' Symposium and Ehibition is held in the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Many Luper lecturers offer their theories and propositions on the various stages of Luper's life. The central exhibit of the conference and exhibition is a collection of 92 suitcases - 92 appropriately being the atomic number of uranium - suitcases that Luper has supposedly been associated with in his travels and prisons. Over the years, the suitcases come to light all over the world.
 
On the last evening of the 'Luper' New York Conference, a long awaited Luper suitcase - suitcase 92 - is opened.

Synopsis

A young man, Aldo Formazzoni, has been given the task, from an early age to avenge his family feud of 100 years. The feud began in Old Naples, with the murder of a young boy who was beginning to move in gangster circles.
 
Aldo's great Uncle was on the run from the police, after partaking in a jewellery theft, and was gunned down in cold blood after surrendering. And The Vendetta has begun.
 
After various attemps by the Formazzoni family to even the balance, it comes down to Aldo to perform this act of honour.
 
As well as having to kill someone from this family his Uncle asks him to join in the 'family business'.  Aldo declines and so a bloody story begins.
 
While on the run from his Uncle, Aldo must still hunt for the Innocent descendant, Johnny Trieste, of the policeman. Circumstances dictate that Aldo hijacks a young woman, Megan Reed, and a strange dynamic begins in the car and on the move.
 
The film moves on various time-lines; from Aldo's childhood, to the action of The Vendetta and its question of honour, and the possible romance that builds within this intense period of time.

Synopsis

Mr Watson is an overweight middle aged man who is used to his systematically self pleasing lifestyle. He goes to his local video shop to rent a video and having seen everything he complains. The video shop owner offers him a video that will change his life.

Synopsis

Two years ago, Gail saw a ghost in her kitchen. It whispered that something would happen in two years' time. A year later it appeared again saying "one more year". Now the year is up. Gail trembles with fear at the thought of what might happen. Is she brave enough to stick around and find out?

Synopsis

Kayelitsha, a township close to Capetown, after the end of Apartheid. Two thirteen-year-old kids- Madiba and Sipho - play along the railway line. A train passes by. A dead man is tossed from the train and rolls to their feet. His lifeless hand clutches an attache case. Inside, the boys find a gun and a video camera. Sipho takes the gun and Madiba the camera. Their destinies are sealed.
 
Madiba makes a wooden box and hides the camera inside, in order to avoid questions and losing his new toy. He starts filming the township and its inhabitants. Through the lens,  his everday surroundings take on a strange new beauty.
 
His status enhanced by gun ownership, Sipho becomes a gang leader and operates out of Capetown. Madiba comes along, but instead of crime, he is more interested in capturing the luxurious life of the city that is in such stark contrast to his township life.
 
In a bookstore, Madiba films a young white girl stealing a book. They look at each other. Going out of the store, she gives him the book with her name written inside it: Estelle.
 
Estelle's father is a famous doctor. She lives in a traditional Capetownian white community in which century-old prejudices have not died with the end of apartheid. Estelle is eager to embrace the new South Africa, but her family doesn't allow her to do so.
 
She rebels and is encouraged by the non-racist views of Mr. Shawn, her music teacher who has taught music in the townships since before independence. Estelle often thinks of Madiba, the boy with his strange camera.
 
Sipho is now addicted to glue. He continues to traffic and becomes the undisputed chief of his small gang.
 
Madiba films incessantly. He also dreams of the young white girl who has held out her hand to him. They meet again some days later, and slowly a strong friendship starts between them.
 
From the first steps of a young cinematographer who changes the perception of his township to the tragic end of Sipho, the good-hearted bad boy, The Wooden Camera tells the story of a friendship between two kids, not understood by their parents, who refuse what seems to them like a compromise with the enemy. It will take all the determination of the kids and the intelligence of Mr. Shawn, who knows that music has no colour, to give a chance to the impossible.
 
Sipho commits a hold-up and is shot dead, while Madiba and Estelle try to find their way into the future through art and love.