Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

Human Traffic focuses on the lives and loves of five friends - JIP (played by John Simm), LULU (Lorraine Pilkington), KOOP (Shaun Parkes), NINA (Nicola Reynolds) and MOFF (Danny Dyer) --who suffer their weekday jobs to 'live it large' at the weekends.


Jip and Lulu are having relationship problems: Jip is insecure after failing to perform during several one night stands and Lulu's talent for picking the wrong bloke is getting her down. Nina and Koop have a great relationship - except he doesn't trust her, and Moff, their friendly dealer, is heading for a fast burn out.


Beneath the heady cocktail of music, clubs, drugs and bullshit, Human Traffic is also a film about friendships.

Synopsis

It is in 1947. India has been given its independence from British rule. The state of Pakistan, the first state to be created as a homeland for Muslims has been painfully born. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan realizes this great ambition and a year later succumbs to the illness through which he has willed himself to live. He is rushed to the hospital and when the ambulance stalls on the highway his life begins to ebb. In is coma Jinnah relives the dilemmas and triumphs of his life, the drama of his ideals, his romance, his happiness and the tragedy of the death of his wife.


Jinnah tells the dramatic story of the partition of India, the final intrigue and arguments between the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru and the mercurial Lady Mountbatten. It takes the handsome young idealist Jinnah on the journey through which his dream of freeing the people of India from the burden and the insult of foreign rule is twisted and tempered by the realities and cruelties of politics. It is the story of a practical visionary who knew that on his word hung the future of a nation, who knew also that such a birth meant a division of a country and of his family, because his only daughter had married an Indian and would remain in India.

Synopsis

A wickedly funny, comic take on the lives of a group of North London gangsters - and their passion for family, friends . . . and Karaoke.


Jonny dreams of leaving his dead-end job as a courier. Through his best friend Jude, nephew of the notorious crime lord Ray Kreed, he wins his way into the toughest gang in North London. Hungry for some real gangster action, Jonny sparks a deadly feud between Ray's gang and another firm in South London.


When a full-scale war erupts between the two sides, culminating in a murder at Ray's wedding, Ray and his opposite number in South London both decide that Jonny must be stopped at all costs.

Synopsis

A sexy, glamorous, romantic comedy, in the style of classic 1930's Hollywood, with world famous songs by Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.


In 1939 the King of Navarre and his three best friends swear an oath to give up women for three years whilst devoting themselves to the study of philosophy. One of the terms of their pledge specifically prohibits women from their presence, but the arrival of the Princess of France and her three beautiful attendants on a diplomatic visit, throws the plan into disarray.


In secret the King and each of his friends pursue the girls and the entire court become intoxicated by love.


The mood is broken by the news of the death of the Princess's father and the girls return to France. France has fallen to the Nazis.


Before they leave, the heartbroken men must prove that their love is not just an infatuation and remain faithful to them. And as proof of their devotion the loving couples are happily reunited at the end of the war.

Synopsis

A small girl, who doesn't believe in fairytales, meets an old woman who claims that she is a mermaid.

Synopsis

Jake and Steven are 16 and living in a small town on the South coast. It's the end of Christmas term and they're excited about the skiing holiday they're about to go on. But it's not just the holiday, it's everything. 16 going on 17 is a great age to be, and Jake and Steven know that the next year is going to be the best ever, with better parties, more laughs, even less parental control and all the girls a year older and maybe this year they'll make good promises.


So Jake, Steve and their classmates go with Mr. Diamond, their English teacher, to France to ski. One of their friends, Heather, has brought along a videocam and is making a documentary about them all, what they want, who they want, ambitions and fear, that kind of thing. Day one they hit the official slopes but the next days it's off-piste. The eleven friends lark about for Heather's camera when BANG! The avalanche hits and they're all swept away on a sea of snow.


Jake wakes up buried in a snow-cave next to Steven. He thinks they're both goners but next time he wakes up it's hospital, rescued. He finds Steven in a nearby bed. Everyone is dead, all of them, Heather, Mr. Diamond, everyone . . .


Back home it's a huge tragic news story. Jake and Steven fly back to their families and a grieving town with the coffins of their friends on the plane with them. As the town, school and families struggle to come to terms with it, Jake and Steven are lost, separated from everything, unable to understand.


They meet and talk. Why didn't we die too? What should we do? What's the point? They stand on a high cliff and look down. Should they jump? No. They decide they'll make a book and fill it with a series of tasks, not important tasks, just things they want to do before they die. And they'll spend the year doing them . . .

Synopsis

In a time when women were expected to conform, Nora, a spirited young woman who has been abused all her life, has her world changed when she meets raffish young writer James Joyce and the pair succumb to a mutual desire.


Persuading him to start a future together away from Dublin, the couple set up home in Trieste, where their passionate and tempestuous life together begins. Joyce is tormented by a fear his work will never be published, but Nora's simplicity and humour anchor his instability and the couple's relationship is bonded by a direct, deep sexual love.


Joyce's complex, torturous nature leads him to irrationally distrust Nora and his attraction to the theme of betrayal motivates him in his work. Nora, faithful and devout, is the one who is being betrayed - in Joyce's manipulation of her as a fuel for his writing.


Ultimately their love is so strong, so all-consuming, that through the subsequent years of turbulence, of Joyce's obsessive behaviour and Nora's courageous and desperate struggle to save their relationship, from Trieste back to Dublin, their devotion conquers all.

Synopsis

Director May Miles Thomas described her debut feature as a "camcorder epic". Besides writing and directing One Life Stand, Miles Thomas took on DoP and editor duties. The result - affirmed by Screen Digest - was the UK's first digital feature, screening in partnership with Digital Projection Inc.
Following a premiere at Rotterdam, the film screened around the world over a two year period, winning multiple awards and drawing an impressive amount of attention and acclaim for both its drama and innovative technical aspects.
Miles Thomas herself won a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and was recognised by HM The Queen as A Pioneer to the Life of the Nation for her work as a digital film-making pioneer.

Synopsis

With it's compelling tale of romantic tragedy in nineteenth century Russia, Alexander Pushkin's epic novel 'Eugene Onegin', has moved and intrigued audiences for 150 years.


Captivated by its powerful narrative about love and loss, award winning actor Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler's List) and his sister, director Martha Fiennes, have assembled a talented and exciting team to bring Pushkin's story to the screen.


Evgeny Onegin is a jaded and disaffected young man who leaves St Petersburg unexpectedly when he inherits an estate from a wealthy uncle. In the country, he is a city sophisticate out of place, with little affinity for the countryside or its people. Nevertheless he strikes up a warm friendship with a neighbour, Vladimir Lensky and, despite his natural cynicism, he is charmed by Lensky's love for his fiancée Olga. He is also intrigued by Olga's sister, Tatyana, a spirited beauty who surprises him with a passionate declaration of love. Onegin is disturbed by her directness but unable to respond and, coolly and politely, rejects her love.


As if needing to demonstrate the cruelty of his nature, Onegin later insults Olga and is challenged to a duel by Lensky who's code of honour prevails when Onegin attempts to extricate both of them from the confrontation. Onegin's shot is fatal and, grief-stricken, he cradles his best friend's body in his arms. Afterwards he leaves and goes into self-imposed exile.


Six years later, Onegin returns to St Petersburg where he again encounters Tatyana, now married to his cousin Prince Nikitin. In realisation of the bitter mistake he made years ago, Onegin determines to claim her and Tatyana is faced with the most difficult decision of her life.

Synopsis

Nick Grosso's award-winning play Peaches, produced by the Royal Court in association with the National Theatre Studio in 1994, launched the career of one of Britain's most promising new playwrights. Grosso now dons the director's hat with this adaptation of the play for the big screen, an ordeal that took some six years to realise.

Exploring the identity crisis afflicting so many young 1990s men, the story revolves around sex-obsessed Frank and his student friends. From a Leeds college bar to the pubs of North London, their emotional adventures are charted in the seemingly nonchalant and comically-hip language of confused and hapless twentysomethings.

Frank's summer as a carefree slacker looks rosy until his best friend starts a job scheme. Then, when his other mate moves in with a girl and a college sweetheart tells him a big secret, Frank's world starts to spin out of control.

The film was inspired by Grosso's own personal philosophy when, as a student, life "wasn't about work, but about getting up in the morning -- about chicks and babes. Work was just a distraction".

Besides Grosso's status as a voice of his generation, the film's saleability rests on its two stars, Matthew Rhys and Kelly Reilly. The former is an up-and-comer whose credits include the soon-to-be-released Sorted and Titus, the latter was recently seen in Ben Elton's Maybe Baby, and both have starred alongside Kathleen Turner in the West End stage version of The Graduate.

Shot with backing from a mix of private equity finance and the Irish Film Board, the film will be offered to agents and distributors in the autumn.

Synopsis

Following Brassed Off and Little Voice, Purely Belter is director Mark Herman's third film to be rooted firmly in the North of England - in this case Newcastle. And like his two critically-lauded hits, it uses a comic energy to tackle serious, gritty reality. "That is his talent as a director - taking ordinary people and successfully combining the comedy and tragedy that make up their lives," says producer Elizabeth Karlsen, who also worked with Herman on Little Voice.

The film, based on Gateshead teacher Jonathan Tulloch's debut novel The Season Ticket, follows two Geordie lads whose wild ambition is to get season tickets for their football team, Newcastle United. Gerry (Chris Beattie) and Sewell (Greg McLane) are broke but they are also resourceful, devising schemes and scams in their attempts to raise the £1,000 they need. However, real life - Gerry's violent dad, Sewell's pregnant girlfriend - keeps getting in the way.

"Football does form the backbone of the story, but it is less a film about football than a film about the boys' dream," says Herman. "It captures the spirit of being a working-class teenager on Tyneside," adds Kevin Whately, who plays the boys' teacher.

DoP Andy Collins helped catch the energy of the story - and of the two young unknowns playing the leads - by using a lot of natural light and shooting with a hand-held camera on a dolly.

Purely Belter, the first film from Mumbo Jumbo, was selected to screen in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes this year.

Synopsis

Set around youths in contemporary London, where cultures, class and race intermingle and influence each other freely and adopted American street style is the fashion of the day. Three teenagers, Jamie aka Rage, a rebellious rapper, Godwin (G), an introverted pianist, and Thomas (T), a forlorn DJ in search of a cause, find themselves in a slow spiral which begins to erode their bond of friendship after a botched-up attempt at a burglary fuelled by desparation. They are not professional thieves but teenagers in pursuit of a dream, to cut a hip hop record. Their failed act will sound a wake-up call which forces them to re-evaluate the true nature of their friendship, as their denied separate paths creep in.


Was their dream and friendship about making a record or based on a subconscious need of helping each other on their journeys of self-discovery and awakening? Hovering in the background of our protagonists' story are Jamie's friend and mentor Marcus, an elderly Rastafarian with a flawed wisdom and a penchant for marijuana which he cannot afford, and Jamie's single mother Ellen, a young woman struggling to navigate her children through the mine-filled existence of a London council estate where the resident charismatic drug lord Pin rules supreme.