Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

The story of a woman's fight to retain her dignity. When she's tried all she can by gentle means, and things are only getting worse, she starts to fight back with a vengeance. A macabre story of a victimised woman who kills the men that torment her and buries them one by one, on top of each other, in a shallow grave. To her surprise however, the dead do not rest easy. The abusive husband she kills returns to torment her as a very real ghost. At the same time, she is being investigated for another murder by a sadistic detective, who is not what he appears to be.

Synopsis

Dead Drunk is an educational short drama that looks at the culture of drinking from the perspective of a group of teenagers on the cusp of adulthood.

Synopsis

Dirty Pretty Things is an urban thriller in which an African night porter enlists the help of a prostitute, a chambermaid and a mortuary technician to solve a bizarre murder. Set in a world of asylum seekers that lies behind the familiar urban metropolis. It is a tale of two cities, both of them in London. Pietter Okwe is a doctor who was framed for murder in Libreville and now scrapes a living in London, driving mini-cabs and working as a night-porter in a West End tourist hotel. When he discovers a human heart in one of the hotel rooms he knows that as an illegal alien working without papers he cannot ask too many questions. Okwe struggles with his sense of injustice as evidence emerges that the hotel is being used to remove human organs from third world donors. Finally, with the aid of a Turkish chambermaid, a hooker and a Chinese mortuary technician, he investigates the murder and enforces a bizarre poetic kind of justice. Dirty Pretty Things explores a Dickensian landscape of rag trade sweat shops, hotel kitchens and mini-cab venues in a London that most Londoners never see.

Synopsis

An intense, gripping short film exploring the emotions of two armed robbers as they contemplate the risk of a bank robbery. A strong character based film that challenges the traditional thriller genre. It tackles themes of paranoia, fatalism and love in an interesting narrative structure.  

Synopsis

Hypnotherapist Dr Michael Strother has a dangerous gift: he gets flashes of the inside of his patient's minds. Whilst trying to help a detective stop smoking, he sees in her mind a young girl floating below the surface of a stream. He is soon caught up in the detective's pursuit of a serial killer who believes he has found the secret of immortality. Although the girl has managed to escape from him, she has been struck mute by her trauma. Only Michael can get at the terrible images locked in her mind, and provide a clue as to the whereabouts of the killer.

Synopsis

Dog takes place on what starts out as an ordinary day for 15-year-old Leah from Thamesmead but turns out to have a shocking and violent conclusion when her boyfriend John is pushed over the edge by an innocuous incident.

Synopsis

Deep in the countryside of a southern state of North America. A young family are heading west: to a new home, a new job and a new beginning. But, during a brief stop at a roadside diner, a sinister presence joins them for the rest of the journey. As they head off into the storm charged night their worst nightmare is about to emerge. Meanwhile at Uncle Max's Diner, Juliet, a young English girl travelling around America, is working the late shift. It's a typical night at the old highway stopover, full of the usual characters that enjoy the hospitality and taste of the 'good old US of A'. However, this wouldn't turn out to be an ordinary evening for Juliet as the 'comings and goings' between staff and regulars is overshadowed by the arrival of a disturbing customer. Here lies the setting to this chilling thriller based on a true and harrowing story.

Synopsis

We meet Mel, a young attractive blonde, on her wedding day. Within the hour her new husband, Fred, is dead. She must quickly find a husband to present to her grandmother, who is dying of cancer. In a stable relationship Mel stands to inherit Granny's money. Sipho, the photographer at her wedding, quickly steps into dead Fred's shoes. When, a few weeks later, Granny dies and the Will is read Sipho is announced the benefactor! It is now up to Mel to find a way to get her hands on what she considers to be rightfully hers. This involves finding another dead body to pull off her plan. Set in the new South Africa, this film is a black comedy, and while every scene ends with an amusing twist, it is a film that provokes 'thoughtful' laughter.

Synopsis

On the eve of Chinese Dynastical millennium, a score of Triad gangs converge on a warehouse. They all seek to hold, as the clock strikes midnight, an ancient Chinese artefact, which promises to the bearer, at the fateful hour, prosperity for the next 1,000 years. At the centre of this decidedly dangerous situation are two small time crooks who have been unwittingly conned into 'caretaking' the gem until midnight. They have no inkling of the gem's real significance, or why so many sadistic people are determined to possess it... but they're slowly finding out! The film is a twist of British film noir with old style Kung Fu. It is a story of deception and gullibility in the highest degree. We follow John and Jerry through their absurd banter as they twist and turn through the maze of events that unravel before them. In the face of danger...

Synopsis

As four Londoners head off into the depths of the English countryside to share a little Christmas cheer, they get more than they bargained for. Soap star Julian Evans discovers his younger sister has been impregnated by inbred pig farmer Carl Sykes, and decides to get out of London and spend Christmas back at his parents' house in the English countryside. Julian's acting career has gone up the creek since leaving top UK soap, Covent Gardens, where he played the character the nation loved to hate, a paedophile social worker. Amber Jade is writing a feature on Julian for a national newspaper. He's been coming on strong since day one, although Jade has a good idea that it will all be over once the article comes out. When he invites her to his country home, she doubts his intentions, and insists her Spanish friend, Carlos, comes along for the ride. All Julian wants is to sort out his pregnant sister and avoid an unfortunate family embarrassment. Jade just wants to cement her dubious relationship with Julian and spend Christmas at a country estate. Unfortunately Carlos wants to cement Julian's sister, along with every other female they come across. And when Carlos laces pig farmer Carl Sykes' little sister, Sam, full of Class A's you can guarantee life for all involved will never be the same.

Synopsis

Sex is a currency. It commands power and it can instil fear. Tom, a young man with a troubled past, finds himself sucked into a seedy underworld by George Norris, a now super villain with a sadistic streak. A helpless pawn in one of Norris' narcotic scams with a bent cop, Dunston, Tom is dragged deeper into a vicious circle of blood money, vice and ruthless violence from which there seems no way out. Until fate gives Tom a glimmer of hope. When Norris is killed in his apartment, Tom seizes his chance to escape. Terrified and covered in Norris' blood, Tom heads downstairs to his neighbours, Max and Nikki, his new friends in the city. With going to the police out of the question, Max and Nikki speed Tom to their desolate cottage deep in the Welsh countryside. With the luxury of space, Tom begins to realise a long-forgotten dream; a return to happier times before his innocence was shattered. Suppressed emotions flood back provoked by Tom's attraction to Nikki, a beautiful woman fascinated by Tom's past. Yet how long can this last with Dunston desperate to hunt down Tom before he exposes the corruption? It's only a matter of time before his deadly past catches up with him again. But just how much is Tom willing to sacrifice?

Synopsis

Caitlin is a young freelance photographer living in an oppressive and impersonal city. Following a series of events, both economic and spiritual, that result in a global recession and subsequent mass unemployment, Caitlin watches as the people around her attempt to come to terms with living a life that no longer seems safe or familiar. At first Caitlin sets out to record the everyday people affected by the crash, whose plight is being almost completely ignored by the mass media, who seem interested in reporting nothing but feel-good propaganda and help perpetuate what amounts to a news blackout. With the crisis continuing to grow, many turn to religious cults that recommend increasingly violent action against the people they believe to be responsible for the global recession. As lawlessness descends upon the city, what remains of the established orders begins a brutal crack down and Caitlin is forced to take drastic action in order to save herself.