Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

A thrilling and visceral opera on wheels; an update of the legend of Satan's fall from Heaven to Hell, via London 1998; a frenzied leather-and-oil spectacular.

Synopsis

Two little girls, Hilary and Jackie du Pré, are inseparable. At first Hilary, the elder sister, is the star musician but when Jackie reaches the tender age of nine, her extraordinary gift as a cellist takes the world by storm. As they grow up, they grow apart. When Hilary announces her marriage to Kiffer, a talented young conductor, Jackie responds by announcing her own engagement to the renowned pianist and conductor, Daniel Barenboim. The two sisters lose touch with one another, until one day Jackie arrives unannounced at the remote farmhouse where Hilary and Kiffer live with their children. Desperate for love and reassurance, Jackie tells Hilary that she wants Kiffer. Hilary has never been able to say no to her sister and Jackie becomes part of the family, until one day Kiffer decides it has to stop. Jackie walks away from her sister's house and we see how life looked from her point of view. Then Jackie meets Daniel Barenboim at a party. She takes her hated instrument and speaks to him through it. But as the world celebrates their fairy-tale love story, something is happening to Jackie. Constantly tired, she fears she's losing her mind. One night, on tour, she can't feel her fingers. She collapses. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Jackie is relieved to know she is not going mad. The celebrated cellist becomes a celebrity invalid, rejecting her sister who she believed had let her down at her moment of greatest need. Only as the end nears can the two women reach across the divide to find a moment of peace and happiness together.

Synopsis

Hold Back the Night tells the story of two youngsters, Charleen and Declan. On the run from the past, their families and the police, they are making their way to the Scottish Highlands. Both are damaged, abused, complex and difficult. As they come to terms with each other and their new found friends including Killer, an unloveable pit-bull terrier, and Vera, whose dying wish is to see the sun rise on the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the calm, barren, beautiful landscape begins to exert its healing influence and Charleen and Declan learn to trust the world again. Hold Back the Night is the story of how they learn to become friends and then lovers, while laying the ghosts of the past and reclaiming their lives.

Synopsis

Laurie, a young journalist, has a crush on Sean, a photographer. He doesn't know she exists. Laurie seizes the opportunity to go on a job with him to interview an artist, Sheena Tyson. Unfortunately, she hasn't done her homework on Sheena or her explicit artwork.

Synopsis

Joint Venture is the story of Edith a 75 year old woman and Angel, a young biker girl. They meet by chance when Edith is at an all-time low as her husband has a terminal illness. She is desperate. Angel is the one who helps her.

Synopsis

" . . . and Brooklyn ain't in London!" Somewhere in deepest West London, we find a group of British-Indian boys leaving school on a typical Friday afternoon. Parading through the crowds of the High Street, their Hip-hop influenced street-style fashion, language and attitude are in full display.

Synopsis

Richard, at 22 has his life turned upside down during a burial in Bradford cemetery, when he meets Barbara, a beautiful young actress from Los Angeles. Leaving behind his inherited undertaker's business and well-meaning girlfriend he is destined to marry, Richard crosses the Atlantic in pursuit of love, adventure and a screenwriting career. As an Englishman abroad, Richard finds himself in situations that, seen from afar, are very funny, but close-up may prove tragic. LA Without a Map is produced by Julie Baines and Sarah Daniel of UK based Dan Films. A stylish, fast-paced dramatic comedy, the film is directed by award-winning Mika Kaurismaki who also wrote the screenplay with Richard Rayner. The screenplay is adapted from Rayner's autobiographical cult hit novel - "Los Angeles Without a Map".

Synopsis

Lay of the Land is a dark and emotionally chilling take on male sexuality and prejudice. It is played out through a charged encounter in an intimate smoky gay bar between John, a drag queen who happens to be straight, and Skif, who admits to being involved in 'gay-bashing'.

Synopsis

Suburbia. Quiet, uninteresting, safe. But if you look a little closer - scratch through the surface - you might find a woman like Lily, an unassuming character who looks no different from anyone else . . . but has a very unusual hobby.

Synopsis

Based on Jim Cartwright's play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice", Jane Horrocks stars in this bittersweet-comedy as the mysterious "LV", who lives in the attic of an unkempt house on the corner of a dead-end street in a seaside town in Northern England. Ever since her father's death, LV has been silent, spending her days listening to his incredible record collection and living in the enchanted charm of his favourite singers and performers. Meanwhile, her motor-mouthed mother Mari - all brass and no class - is living it up, continuing on a booze cruise for exciting lovers. Then a new man struts into Mari's life: Ray Say, a sleazy and spectacularly unsuccessful local talent agent who Mari thinks of as 'Elvis Breath' and her best chance yet for 'loving'. Meanwhile, LV has a revelatory run-in of her own with a man almost as shy as she is - a telephone repair-man named Billy who isn't much for vocal communication. It is the first time anyone, other than her father, has paid attention to her. But just as things are opening up for Little Voice, Ray Say hears the magical strains of Judy Garland coming from her room - and realises that's no ghost, it's Little Voice. Stunned by her talent, he smells the big times. Dreams and desperations collide as he and Mari stake everything on making the terrified and resistant Little Voice into a star. At last, Little Voice agrees to go public with her amazing impersonation, but just once . . .

Synopsis

Every woman wants to be wanted . . . just not by the entire Metropolitan Police Force. Maddy's first day out with her newborn takes a Kafkaesque turn when she's arrested in Harrods for shoplifting. If this is a miscarriage of justice, then detaining her in Holloway Prison's Mother and Baby Unit is the pits. Panicked at the thought of enforced adoption, she smuggles Jack to freedom in her friend Gillian's handbag - a woman with the maternal instincts of a guppy fish. Finding herself a runner-up in the Human Race, the only person Maddy can turn to is her hot-to-trot ex-lover Alex . . . who proves himself as useful as a solar-powered vibrator on a rainy day. The trouble with Alex is his sex appeal - he gives generously. Will Maddy ever escape the evil clutches of Edwina Phelps, prison psychotherapist? With the emphasis on physcho. Will she ever see Alex for what he is: a self-made man . . . who worships his creator? When will Alex realise that a 'paternity suit' is not the latest look in men's wear? How do you brief a lawyer with a heat seeking penis which does not report to mission control? And why the hell is Gillian searching for a sperm happy to get egg all over its face? There's hard knocks and rude shocks in this devastatingly witty screenplay. You'll split your episiotomy stitches laughing.

Synopsis

Jane Austen's novel, Mansfield Park, is combined with some of her comically surreal teenage writings, her letters and various biographical and historical details to construct the passionate story of a decadent, aristocratic family as seen through the eyes of one of their playthings: a young cousin, Fanny Price, dropped into their midst but always reminded she will never be their class equal. When a highly desirable and well-established young man, Henry Crawford, seeks her hand in marriage, the family is overjoyed. But she refuses him and is consequently sent back to her achingly poor and overcrowded "home" in Portsmouth. She longs for the one person who is forbidden to her: Edmund, the idealistic second son who has been her ally and soulmate since she first arrived at Mansfield Park as a little girl. But he is on the verge of marriage to Henry's teasingly enticing sister, Mary. Henry follows Fanny to Portsmouth. If she continues to refuse her wealthy and not unattractive suitor, she risks certain poverty and isolation. The ensuing ardent entanglements are played out against the subtle backdrop of the slave trade which we are reminded is "paying for the party" at Mansfield Park.