Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

A love story full of humour, passion and danger, My Name is Joe was filmed in the heart of one of the poorest and most neglected neighbourhoods of Scotland's biggest city. Two street-wise but vulnerable people struggle to overcome the harsh conditions that weigh them down, leaving few choices in their lives.

Synopsis

In the small hours of the night two shots ring out. Kudjo, a black gangster, lies alone and bleeding on the floor of his deserted nightclub. Through his eyes, we see the climactic events which led up to his shooting. Set in London's clubs, the film tells of a man's battle to escape the hate that he himself set in motion many years before.

Synopsis

On The Edge is a turbulent love story between two tormented characters who desperately try to come to terms with the flaw in their nature. Lorna is a lost and distraught teenage heroin addict, who prostitutes herself to feed her habit. Court is a young man in his early twenties, haunted by the betrayal of his sister, who was sacrificed by his mother to regain her daughter's lost soul.

Synopsis

An animated drama-documentary about Tana, a child holocaust survivor who tells her story for the first time after fifty years and speaks about the reasons for her long silence. The use of mixed styles of animation enabled the film-makers to portray the little girl’s point of view and helps the audience identify with the central character.

Synopsis

A vivid and enthralling account of one man's journey to love, sex and independence. Recounted with wry humour and poignancy, the story follows Brit, a young boy with brittle bones which restrict his growth, among his colourful Parsee family in Bombay. Eccentric anglophile Sera is undaunted by her son's condition, whereas Sam, his dashing father, struggles to come to terms with imperfection. Along with his unconventional sister Dolly, a true ally, Brit is at the centre of a host of vibrant characters. Based on his acclaimed autobiographical novel, Firdaus Kanga makes his acting debut as Brit.

Synopsis

By the side of a road somewhere in the North of England, Sammy stands and waits for the arrival of childhood friends Billy and Ruby. It is twenty years since they all first met, when Sammy was taken by social workers to join an isolated children's home on the dramatic Northumbrian coast. As Sammy gets into Billy and Ruby's car it is immediately clear that, despite the fact that Ruby is recently pregnant, there is violent tension between them and that there is a psychological significance to the mysterious journey that Billy is taking them on.


As the journey progresses, we travel back to the past of their childhood when Sammy, shy and vulnerable and unable to read, joins the home. Billy, confident and charismatic, befriends and guides him through the trials of life in the home and protects him from the violent attentions of the resident bully, Bernie. As Sammy grows in confidence, Billy encourages a romantic attachment with his old girlfriend, the flame-haired Ruby. Using his emotional power over his friends, Billy establishes a ménage a trois that sets them apart from other children in the home. This power is threatened when, in a dramatic incident, Billy tries to defend Sammy from Bernie and gets savagely beaten. The resulting act of revenge is one which will inextricably bind the three friends through the intervening years until the pressure of the past and present combine to force an inevitable resolution.

Synopsis

Such a Long Journey is an intricately layered, wryly humorous novel set in Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over the fate of what was to become Bangladesh. A hard working bank clerk, Gustad Noble, is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter, Roshan, falls ill in spite of his and his wife's ministrations; his promising son defies reasonable voice amid the ongoing dramas of his habitually quarrelsome neighbours.


One day Gustad receives a letter from an old friend, now working for a CIA-like branch of Indira Gandhi's government asking him to help in what seems like a heroic mission. In his innocence, and with feelings of loyalty to his friend, Gustad uneasily agrees. He soon finds himself over his head and alone in his unwitting complicity as he is drawn deeper into a dangerous network of deception.


Gustad's quiet dignity, his sense of moral order, have luminous presence in the sometimes antique world of his friends and acquaintances including the medicine lady, Miss Kutpitia, who suggests elaborate medical spells; the lame and child-like Tehmul; Dinshawji, Gustad's bumptious co-worker and friend, whose flirtation with the new typist goes too far.


Compassionate, broad in its vision, and rich in details of character and place, this is a mature and rewarding saga that charts the journey of a moral heart in a turbulent world of change.

Synopsis

A ship sets sail on an epic voyage through malignant natural and supernatural elements from which one man alone survives. An adaptation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by 19th century wood engravings which are animated by scratching directly into the surface of colour filmstock.

Synopsis

July 19th 1947. Albert Speer, Hitler's Architect and War Minister, is sent to Spandau Prison for twenty years for his involvement in Nazi War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. He claims ignorance of the Final Solution, but enlists the help of the prison chaplain to try to reconcile his sense of guilt over the terrible things that took place with his pride in his achievements and dream of building the greatest city in the world.

Synopsis

Leicester, 1972. T-Rex are chewing up the charts and Jack, a mixed race teenager with a lot more than schoolwork on her mind, has a hectic month of growing up to do. This is coming-of-age, Midlands-style: forget the Prom, corridor passes and making out at the drive-in. Think Baked Alaska, the Colgate ring of confidence and sneaky cigarettes behind the bike sheds.


When we first meet Jack it's the day of her first period and just four weeks before she has to run the race of her life for a place on the county athletics squad. Convinced she is champion material, her bullish PE teacher, Mr Loughborough, is piling on the pressure to train hard, and buys her a long-coveted pair of swanky red trainers to demonstrate his commitment.


But a 13-year-old's life is not just one long 200 metres: Jack shines in academia and art class as well as on the track, and she's got her eye on a rather handsome classmate called Steven Green. Sex, 'frigging' and the big 'V' are the subject of every school bus seminar and playground pow wow. And Jack's mum Vivian is determined to keep a beady eye on her daughter's new-found interest in matters carnal. Vivian is also convinced her daughter is about to be offered a cocktail of class A drugs on every street corner.


While on a school cross-country run up to the local tourist trap and nookie spot, Jack is approached by Spanner, a David Cassidy look-alike with a nice line in cannabis consumption and floppy hair. He introduces Jack to the delights of getting slowly wasted in the sun. Meanwhile Jack's best friend Maxine sets her pal up in a garage tryst to do the deed with Steven Green and his spotty mate Poor Bastard. But the three of them are disturbed by a local policeman. By now determined to throw off her cumbersome virginity, Jack steals a handful of contraceptive pills from her mum's bedside cabinet and finally gets together with Spanner...

Synopsis

The Governess is a moving love story set in the 1830's. When Rosina Da Silva's father is killed, she is forced to disguise her Jewish identity and seek employment in the world outside the sheltered East London community in which she was born and brought up. The only job that she can find is on a remote island in Scotland as governess to a spoilt young girl, Clementina. Her employer, Charles Cavendish, is a mysterious man, who is conducting secret experiments in a wing of the old house. When Rosina, overcome by curiosity, breaks into his workroom at night, she discovers that he is experimenting with photography, working towards a solution which will fix the fleeting images he has taken.


Cavendish, lonely and unrecognised in his work, invites Rosina to join him in his workroom. They begin an intense and passionate affair. When Cavendish's son Henry returns home from university, this affair takes a turn that threatens to tear the whole family apart.

Synopsis

Directed by Simon Donald, who has adapted his successful play for the screen, The Life of Stuff is like life itself, a brutal blend of comedy, thrills and the unexpected.


Wannabe gangster Willie Dobie has bought a squalid warehouse, which he plans to turn into a flagship of his criminal empire. Believing he has eliminated his arch rival, 'Mad Alec Sneddon', he plans to hold the party of a lifetime to celebrate. Helping to organise this event are his main henchmen, the psychotic David Arbogast and eczema-ridden Leonard. Making up this motley crew are Holly and Evelyn, lured to the party by the promise of a good time and good drugs; Fraser, the innocent perpetrator of Sneddon's demise, and Janice, who also played an unwitting part in the murder - both now trapped in the basement.


During the course of the evening, with events spiralling ever more crazily out of control, Dobie is brought violently to the realisation that his dream of 'donship' is just that; a dream which will be shot down in flames as Sneddon avenges his 'death'.