Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

Brendan, a porter at the Dublin Medical College, is plagued with financial strains and a gamblers' sordid past. Not only has he let down his wife, but also his daughter who desperately wants to go to university. However, never one to crumble, Brendon has a plan. He has found a 'golden goose' - an object with a hidden talent sequestered deep within the archives of the college which may provide the Midas touch Brendon so needs. This source has an uncanny knack for picking the winning horse at the local races. Needless to say, Brendan and his colleagues intend to exploit this 'talent' to its fullest - risking everything on their ability to outwit the local bookies and other, rather more unexpected, obstacles. They are, quite literally, betting their futures 'On The Nose'. In a race against time they need just one last win to set themselves up - before the inevitable happens and their chance of happiness is snatched away from them forever.

Synopsis

Set in the United States at the height of the Cold War in the fifties, One Of The Hollywood Ten examines the personal struggle and triumph of Herbert Biberman, a film director, in his crusade to continue his filmmaking career in the face of the McCarthy-led Blacklist. At its most personal, Biberman's story is a compelling drama of individual perseverance and familial sacrifice and, at its most political, a conspiracy thriller and ever-relevant testament to societal paranoia and hate-mongering. The film opens by establishing the historical climate - anticommunist paranoia, Congressional persecution of 'unAmerican activities' and friends informing on friends - that pervaded the early years of the Cold War in Hollywood and beyond. In detail, the various reactions of members of the film community to persecution is explored, from the high-profile trip to Washington, D.C. by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in support of those persecuted that ended in his famous recantment, to the varying tactics of those not so readily remembered in pleading either the fifth or first amendments, or merely pleading to not be asked to speak at all. At the centre of this maelstrom is Herbert Biberman and his wife, Academy Award-winning actress Gale Sondergaard, who refused to name names and who stood by their acknowledged communist beliefs. For this, Biberman was cited for contempt of Congress, becoming in the process one of the 'Hollywood Ten', and was sentenced to serve jail time in a federal prison in Arkansas. Act two evolves from the more familiar contextual elements of the Blacklist in the first act, to follow Herbert and Gale's attempts to restart their film-making careers on Herbert's release from prison. Herbert, unable to be re-instated to the Director's Guild of America, an organisation he co-founded in the thirties, resolved to strike back in the only way he knew possible: by making a film: The Salt of the Earth.

Synopsis

If control is not strengthened, it is estimated that between now and 2020, nearly one billion more people around the world will be newly infected with Tuberculosis. This short film demonstrates how poor living conditions are contributing to a new outbreak in Romania, Eastern Europe.

Synopsis

Although set in the past, Pandaemonium is a film about contemporary themes of friendship, creativity, addiction and betrayal. It is also the story of a love that outlasts all these things. When they wrote, the depth of feeling and experience conveyed in Coleridge and Wordsworth's poetry had as immediate and visceral an impact on their audience as great movies or popular music do today. Together they revolutionised writing in English and changed the direction of 19th century thought. Both were clearly men of genius, but both were also flawed. It is these faults within each of them and their intense relationship with each other which makes this story not a literary biopic but an immediate human drama connecting directly with our own experience. I see the young Coleridge and Wordsworth as figures with great resonance for today. The 1790s, like the 1990s, were a time of profound political and technological change. The French Revolution, the social upheaval of industrialisation, the first exploration of flight, electricity and photography, all announced the beginning of the modern world. Like us at the end of the twentieth century, Coleridge and his friends were excited by these breakthroughs, yet questioned what the future of industry and technology might bring. Their deep trust in nature prefigures our own ecological concerns. Their status as celebrities, pre-dating Byron, Shelley and Keats, made them the 'pop stars' of their day, drawing sell-out crowds to their lectures and public appearances. Many in today's audience will sympathise with Coleridge's desperate struggle with his own insecurities and addiction, something that had never occurred in such a public context before. I hope to emphasise these important parallels and convey the emotional power of the story to a wide audience by shooting the film in a thoroughly contempory style. A mobile and often hand-held camera will be employed to give the film a raw and realistic edge, capturing the sense of young people doing things that had not been done before, and accentuating the spirit rather than the letter of the time. - Julien Temple.

Synopsis

Mickey and Joe, two impoverished actors, live in Glasgow. They have serious debts and they can't get any acting work because of their attitude - they want David Mamet plays but they only get offered pantomime. On an impulse they decide to flee the city and get on a plane to Los Angeles - after all their best mate Steve assures them they will find fame, fortune and women. Upon arriving in LA they instantly look out of place and Steve is not doing as well in Hollywood as he pretended: he works for a studio but as a cleaner. The 'luxury pad' in Hollywood Hills turns out to be a battered old roadie bus. Undeterred, they begin to audition for no-hope films and so begin their desperate escapades through LA, which eventually lead them to Las Vegas in the hope of earning enough money to fulfil their dreams.

Synopsis

A dream within a dream within a dream within a crash.

Synopsis

Live action characters venture into a neo-futuristic shopping mall and are then corrupted and distorted by their own desire for consumerism. The animation breaks through the live action shell and reveals savage desires then reconstructs itself - the world is never the same again.

Synopsis

Dramatised documentary about Rachel Gunzig, Resistance heroine and Communist spy. Rachel worked for the Red Orchestra, the WW2 spy network betrayed by West and East in the Cold War. A tale of adventure and ideological conflict, and the poignant story of a mother and the son who was the victim of her idealism.

Synopsis

One Thursday morning Randall, one of life's natural wasters, awakes to find the door to his flat jammed shut and that his ex-girlfriend, Tabby, wants to buy a kilo of coke, price no object. Enter Phil, Randall's best mate. Dangerous and psychotic some say, unless you live in a permanent drug induced haze and don't notice, as Randall does. Through Tommy, their schizophrenic dealer, they acquire the necessary amount of coke and set things up to sell it on at double the price. A fact they quite sensibly conceal from Tommy and his boss. Randall and Phil wait at the bar for the courier to show up with the gear. The next morning Randall is wakened by Phil discovering a bloody corpse on the living room floor. This triggers a seemingly incomprehensible descent into confusion and death for them both. Threatened by an American drugs baron, fuelled with a cocktail of drink and drugs and spurred on by the promise of a £20,000 reward they struggle to discover the truth behind this bizarre turn of events.

Synopsis

The 1981 Toxteth riot was the most violent civil disturbance in Britain this century. Over three days more than £11 million worth of property damaged, 1,000 police injured, 500 people arrested. Citizens of the deprived area reacted angrily to high unemployment and years of racial harassment from the police. Hearing from the rioters, community leaders, victims, local and national government members, this unique documentary recalls how this situation escalated out of control. Ordinary people caught up in the riots gave their views and accounts as to the reasons for, and the inadequacy of the authorities' response to, the days of disorder and destruction.

Synopsis

The story deals with the conflict and cross-cultural tension experience between a British educated African man and his black American wife in an African setting. The film revolves around Emma, a black American who grows up in America's deep south. Her dream is to settle in Africa where, she believes, people will not view her with suspicion, but accept her as an integral part of the human race. Kofi Boateng, the husband, is born of African parents having lived in London since the age of sixteen. He is an architect with a multi-national firm. He refuses to go to Africa because he believes the continent is not developed enough to appreciate his talent. By sheer coincidence these two characters meet in a nightclub in London. For Emma it is a dream come true, because of the possibility that one day they could settle in Africa. Whilst Kofi also sees this union as a way of eventually living in America. The story unfolds, ten years into the marriage in London.

Synopsis

This programme tracks the demise of three redundant robots as they attempt to re-assert meaning into their empty lives. The film takes a satirical view of this popular television format, combining stop motion animation and computer layering to explore the characters and their emotional dispositions.