Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

CJ has created a fake reality in his head where he is in love with the most popular jock in school, Freddie. As suddenly as the pair have fallen in love CJ is dragged into his depressing reality, he gets bullied for his sexuality and Freddie doesn’t even know he exists. Living in his fantasy, CJ is missing out on the reality of the high school experience, he only has one friend and spends his free time watching 90s teen romcoms. With the unwanted help of his best friend, Jen, CJ is forced to come to terms with his sexuality and accept that reality can be better than living in a fantasy.

Synopsis

King Henry VIII reigned for 38 years. Young and handsome, his Court was the most colourful and extravagant in Europe. Yet this glamorous exterior partly disguised his unpredictable and savagely ruthless nature. His obsession to father a legitimate male heir led him through six marriages, to make himself Supreme Head of the English Church and to cut down those who stood in his way. 'Monarch' is part fact, part fiction, and unfolds around one night when the injured ruler arrives at a manor house closed for the season. Henry is without the power and control of his palace and is vulnerable from those around him, and from his own sanity. Henry left England financially and morally bankrupt; his collection of enemies his only constant. Even today there is a question mark surrounding his burial and possible exhumation. TP McKenna plays Henry; after starring alongside Richard Burton's Henry VIII in the epic 'Anne of a Thousand Days', 'Charge of the Light Brigade', 'Straw Dogs'; and with Jean Marsh ('Upstairs Downstairs', 'Willow' and 'Fatherland') playing an amalgamation of his ex-wives. 'Monarch' unfolds on one night in the year of Henry's death, 1547.

Synopsis

Newport and the Gwent valleys provide the backdrop for this gritty, hardhitting film. It's the last night of the Millennium and it's also crunch time for three couples. Lee is a local rock singer who's tuning up for what could be his big break - a gig in London. It may be a chance to escape from Wales but can he escape from his troubled past? Dafydd and Susie are expecting their first child but footloose Dafydd is afraid the baby will stifle his freedom. And eloping to freedom is what's on Howard and Alma's minds as their affair reaches a climax. Three couples. Three crises. One hell of a night.

Synopsis

A Love Divided is the moving and dramatic love story of a marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant in 1950's Ireland. The events of their lives made international news headlines. Based on a true story A Love Divided is essentially a love story about a brave and passionate couple whose love was severely tested but was strong enough to survive - against all the odds. 'This story is about having the nerve to stand outside of your own tribe and make your decisions in the face of your history and upbringing. It is about having control over your own lives - that is Sheila and Sean's love story'. Syd Macartney - Director Locations - Dublin city and country, Rathdrum and Wicklow environs, and Ballycastle.

Synopsis

A day in the life story of three young people who meet through a chance encounter and decide to become criminals together for one brief moment.

Synopsis

A rare UK-Norwegian collaboration, Aberdeen reunites actor Stellan Skarsgard with Hans Petter Moland, the acclaimed writer-director of their much admired 1996 feature Zero Kelvin. An emotional road movie, it co-stars Lena Headey as a young lawyer reluctantly fulfilling her ailing mother's request that she bring her alcoholic father back from Oslo to the Scottish oil industry capital of Aberdeen. Her intention is to enrol him in a rehab programme, but en route they are both forced to re-examine their relationship and the reasons for their trip. 'It's a very tough and exceptionally unsentimental account of the bond that develops between the daughter and the father during their journey,' explains co-producer John McGrath. 'When I read it I loved the characters, the quality of the writing and the fact it was set in Scotland. It felt a very natural co-production project rather than some Euro-pudding and it actually reactivates a long dormant UK-Norway co-production treaty.'

Synopsis

At the centre of About Adam, is a Dublin family consisting of a mother Peggy, three daughters Lucy, Laura and Alice and son David. Into their lives comes Adam - an enigmatic young man. At first he meets Lucy who finds him shy and gentle. As she herself is a singer/waitress in a restaurant and is extrovert and fun-loving, she surprises herself by this attachment. The relationship grows until she is head-over-heals in love with Adam. Indeed she is the one who proposes marriage to him - which he accepts. The date is set. What Lucy doesn't know is that her older and more serious sister Laura has been bumping into Adam, in all sorts of places. She has a different view of him, finding him intellectual and passionate. Conversation and literature draw them together until, despite her guilt, the inevitable happens and they begin an affair. But then, Adam's acceptance of Lucy's proposal leaves Laura in a quandary, not knowing where all this leading to, but reluctant to give him up. Meanwhile little brother David is having a classic problem - how to get his girlfriend to sleep with him for the first time. He sees in Adam a fellow lad, a football fan, an experienced man of the world who might help. Which Adam happily does. They conceive an elaborate plan to create the right circumstances for David and Karen to get it together, but somehow it all goes wrong. David's anger abates later however when he finds Karen more than willing. Adam is his hero. Finally the eldest sister Alice, who is both perceptive and unhappily married, realises that there is more to Adam than meets the eye.

Synopsis

Adam's camp; Steve's camp. Dinner sets things straight, naturally.

Synopsis

Vicky Young is a successful young model, suffering from the insecurities of fame and fortune. At the height of her career, she is on the slippery slope to self-destruction, thanks to peer pressure, drink and drugs. Invited to launch a new line of lingerie in South Africa, she falls further out of control and clashes with her manager, Josh Sinclair. Unable to deal with the demands of her job or her feelings for Josh, whom she knows she is letting down, she decides in desperation, and against all advice, to take time out by driving across country to her next photo shoot. Unused to driving in such a strange, hostile environment, Vicky crashes her vehicle, way out in the middle of the bush. Vicky's struggle to survive in the truly wild landscape of Africa mirrors the jungle that is civilisation and, in surviving, she is able to rediscover her values. Edinburgh - NBX review: Greg Wise, Elizabeth Berkley and Patrick Bergin star alongside South African actress Dorette Potgieter in the story of a fashion model's struggle to survive in the African bush. Fast slipping into a life of drugs and drink and repeatedly clashing with her manager (Wise), Vicky Young (Potgieter) decides to take some time out from her schedule and drive by herself to the location of her next shoot. An accident leaves her stranded in the remote African landscape and she has to pit her wits against the forces of nature to survive. The film was shot over six weeks in a private game reserve near Johannesburg. 'The biggest challenge was filming the animals,' says writer-director Paul Matthews. "We had everything - rhinos, lions, elephants - and they weren't just in background shots. We had scenes of our lead actress up a tree surrounded by lions, being chased by a lion, being harassed by hyenas, and working very close to a herd of elephants, which anyone who has been near elephants knows is quite hair-raising. It really required a lot from her. And getting those kind of shots on such a tight schedule was very demanding." The film is produced by Peakviewing, which recently laid out its film-making ambitions by setting up a theatrical distribution company headed by industry veteran Martin Myers. The company plans to make up to six features a year and will launch with the £12m Merlin 2000, a CG-heavy family adventure starring Rik Mayall, Tia Carrere, Patrick Bergin, Adrian Paul and Craig Sheffer, which was also written and directed by Matthews.

Synopsis

The Emperor Akbar breeds animals in captivity, to honour his first born son. His unsettled cheetah fails to breed. Akbar experiments with the enclosures he has built for his collection in order to induce the cheetahs to mate. After many frustrated attempts, Akbar gains a greater understanding.

Synopsis

In 1935, when it was more common for Irish families to leave their famine-stricken country for America, the impoverished McCourt family does the reverse. Angela and her alcoholic husband Malachi set sail from New York Harbour to Cork with their four children, Frank, Malachy Jr. and twins Eugene and Oliver to a land which a mystified young Frank had only heard of as 'where there was no work and people were dying of the starvation and the damp'. A cold greeting awaits them in Limerick by Angela's Catholic family. Grandma lends them money for a small place but any hope of their luck changing soon disappears with Dad not being able to find employment, and Oliver and Eugene dying from malnourishment and the damp. Dad's spirits sink lower and he drowns his sorrows in alcohol. Edinburgh Film Festival - nbx write up: As soon as he finished reading Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, the devastating portrayal of a child growing up in Ireland, British film-maker Alan Parker tried to option the film rights. Although they had already been acquired by US producers David Brown and Scott Rudin, Parker soon signed on as director, taking a production credit via his London-based Dirty Hands Productions. The director then updated the first draft of the script written by Australian writer Laura Jones. "Adapting any famous literary work is problematic in that, in the compression to a manageable cinematic shape, inevitably, certain characters and situations will be excluded," Parker said. At that time in 1998, Dirty Hands had a first-look deal with PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, now known as Universal Pictures International (UPI). UPI agreed to back the project along with Paramount Pictures. With two-times Academy Award nominee Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle in place as the leads, and three boys cast for the three ages of Frank, production began in September 1998. "Our film had the advantage of being financed by two studios and so we had the luxury of moving this huge travelling circus around Ireland," says Parker. The team decided to shoot in Dublin and Cork as well as Limerick, the western Irish town where the majority of the book is set. "It was obvious that a patchwork quilt, a mosaic of different places, would have to be put together to accurately replicate the Limerick of 50-odd years ago," says Parker. Angela's Ashes wrapped in December 1998 after a 75-day shoot. It was released in the US in December 1999.

Synopsis

Edinburgh International Film Festival - NBX review: Another George is the latest feature film to be produced by students at the prestigious Northern Media School at Sheffield Hallam University. An arthouse film, it tells the story of a man, played by Gregor Jordan, on an archaeological dig in the Peak District. He develops insomnia and starts writing a story based on the quest of Saint George that gradually becomes intermingled with the story of his own life. The post-graduate course in Screen Arts attracts film-making students from around the world and across the film-making disciplines. Such a potent mix is evident in Another George which is co-written and co-directed by Uruguay's Pablo Casacuberta, a writer, and Japan's Yukihiko Goto, a director. Co-director of photography Alex Gabbay comes from a documentary film-making background, while the producer is Scotland's Alison Garritty. "Bringing together film-makers from across the disciplines creates a unique relationship with the visuals," says Jan Worth, executive producer of the project, and head of the Northern Media School. Shot on a digital video camera for £4,000 and majority financed by the Northern Media School, Another George was completed at the end of 1999 and premiered at London's Lux Cinema in June. One impressed critic described the film as "a Jim Jarmusch remix of Rossellini".