Projects

Synopsis

Like all the films produced by Peakviewing, Pets is an adventure intended for the whole family. Josh Grolman and Jenna Dover star as a brother and sister who get embroiled in a battle over a truck full of stolen gold bullion while their parents are meeting the bank manager in a last-ditch attempt to save their farm from foreclosure. The children call on the unlikeliest of allies -- their pets -- who club together to see off the crooks and save the day.



Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the film is that it was shot over just six weeks at the end of last year. That the film features a cast of talking live and animatronic animals makes that breakneck shooting schedule all the more remarkable.



"Babe had something like a year, but we had to keep the schedule down for budget reasons," says director David Lister. "The animatronic animals made a big difference. They are a lot more controllable than real animals, who tended to squabble amongst themselves. It really worked best when we had a live animal and an animatronic puppet. It's quite a stylised film -- the animals talk, so you have to suspend disbelief -- but we used lots of primary colours in the design and occasionally went for unusual camera angles to heighten that stylised sense."



Since then, Lister has shot two further films for Peakviewing: Dazzle, a romantic comedy about a fairy with amnesia, and spooky story The Meeksville Ghost.

Synopsis

Tom and Freda spend a summer's day picnicking in a forest. The atmosphere between them is fraught with unease and nerves are soon strained to breaking point. Freda walks away from Tom. However, the forest surrounds exert a powerful and unexpected effect on their emotions . . .

Synopsis

Four women settle down to a game of poker. Throughout the evening in a heady atmosphere of alcohol, cards, bluffing and cheating, they each reveal more than the cards they hold.

Synopsis

Poached tells the story of a young salmon poacher who comes to terms with his desire to leave his problematic family and homeland. Set in the rural community of the Scottish borders.

Synopsis

In the pressure cooker of a Friday afternoon commuter train, scruffy strangers strike up an edgy rapport. But when they hit on the subject of homosexuality, the darkly comic conversation careers out of control.

Synopsis

A portrait of a child painted on a sheet of glass. There is a barely discernible change in the child's eyes. Slowly the child focuses towards the direction of the audience. There is an uneasy confrontation between the portrait and the audience.

Synopsis

A romantic undertaker is in love with his female barber. He is shocked to find the image of her face printed in the eyes of a young male corpse. His jealousy brings their business relationship to a close, and an unusual solution is found to his unrequited love.

Synopsis

When an undertaker sees the image of his secret obsession embedded in a dead man's retina, he decides to make her his final and everlasting image.

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

quadrature/n. 1. Math. the process of constructing a square with an area equal to that of a figure bounded by a curve, e.g. a circle. 2. Astron. a. each of two points at which the moon is 90° from the sun as viewed from earth. b. the position of a heavenly body in relation to another 90° away.

Synopsis

A story told by a wealthy couple to their child about how an honest man arrived in a town of thieves. But it isn't a fairy story - it's the truth.

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.