Projects with status: Complete

Synopsis

When a brutal rebel warlord visits Moscow to negotiate peace, the President insists he is to be given anything he wants.

Synopsis

An uncompromising black comedy about two social outcasts, The Big Finish is set at a college in Brighton on the last day of term. Misfit loners Gary (Gary Moreline) and Tom (Tom Woodman) decide to take their revenge on the bullying teachers and students who have made their school lives a misery. But what starts as a fairly harmless prank at the school dance soon escalates into bloody mayhem, all recorded on the twosome's camcorder. The film marks the debut of the Heather brothers, who are best known for the musical Slice Of Saturday Night which had a three-year run in London's West End. Teaming up with their stage producer John Griffin, they set up Slice Films to develop feature films, focusing especially on digital video, on which they shot The Big Finish. "It's a fresh, young medium and that makes it very stimulating to work with," says Neil Heather. "We think that soon everything will be shot on digital because it's so fast and flexible and immediate." It's also economical to work with and suited the brother's working methods. They began with a scripted narrative, then brought in their cast (including pupils from the Brighton college they were filming in) and went through a rigorous rehearsal process, whereby the actors learnt each scene, then improvised with their own dialogue for a more authentic teenage voice. The result was then filmed by Lea Heathers and the process would start again for the next scene. The brothers are now making the follow-up, Sweet Dreams, again with a cast of newcomers. Meanwhile, they are shopping The Big Finish around the major international distributors.

Synopsis

After a wild night out, Lawrence decides to change his lifestyle. He visits old friends, but a destructive love triangle reveals other reasons for his visit.

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On a dark Saturday night, Harvey Kitts stumbles into a hospital suicide ward. He holds a paper bag in his hand and sorrowful memories in his head.

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Described by The Independent as a "millennial British version of Chris Marker's Sunless", Blue Summer is an experimental film about the doomed love affair between a writer and his conceptual artist lover. An unseen narrator guides us through the story, describing how he unearthed a pile of letters and fragments of a novel in an abandoned trailer in the countryside. Slowly, these fragments come to life, revealing how the writer's paranoid fantasies provoke a psychological meltdown. Exploring a number of contemporary concerns - the media, modern art, digitalisation, modernism, ecology - the film experiments with filmic genres and uses image and sound to mirror the writer's descent into madness. Writer-director John Sergeant, who has made over 30 documentaries for both the BBC and Channel 4, shot the film over five years on a tiny budget. "I wanted to make a film on my own terms rather than going through the commissioning process, which I know can completely change a writer-director's original idea," says Sergeant.   That uncompromising approach has won the film fans around the world. Following its premiere at last year's Sheffield International Documentary Festival, it was invited to London, Rotterdam, Zanzibar and Ankara, and has also enjoyed special screenings at arthouse cinemas around the UK, all as a result of word of mouth.

Synopsis

Liam O Mochain's low-budget road movie has all the ingredients that first-time film-makers dream about: Hollywood stars, film prizes and a word-of-mouth buzz that has turned it into an independent Irish hit. O Mochain stars as Vincent Macken who has written what he believes is the best post-modern novel ever about a hero's quest to win the hand of a princess. But when Macken overhears money-grubby literary agents rubbishing his work he decides to re-set his story in contemporary times and shoot it on video. He hires a video-maker and the two set out together across Ireland. Vincent soon believes he has a hit on his hands, heads for the Venice Film Festival, blags a press pass and tries to convince a number of Hollywood stars to come to Ireland and take part in his film. Which is pretty much what O Mochain did to get his film made. He recalls "arriving in Venice with our small crew - me as the director- producer-actor and a camera-sound person. We decided to stay at a campsite as it would be in character with the film. And we had no money. Every day we blagged our way into press conferences, chasing anyone that looked vaguely familiar and getting our celeb cameos. We came home triumphant, having interviewed George Clooney, Kenneth Branagh, Melanie Griffith and Robert De Niro. This was enough to get the cast and crew on a high." The Book That Wrote Itself premiered at Galway in July 1999 and went on to win awards at the Austen and Irish Reels festivals. It was released in Ireland in early August.

Synopsis

A young entrepreneur is trying to run a hectic travel agency using a phone box at the docks as his office.

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A man has always lived with his overbearing mother. Desperate to escape, a mysterious phone call from a remote telephone box presents him with an opportunity.

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Light satirical drama about the chaotic pleasure of relationship. A young caretaker is a non-believer in love, until he bumps into a French girl under a bed!

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Two chefs prepare a meal from beginning to end. One meal, one shot, one take, perfection!

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Uberto Pasolini knows a thing or two about taking a punt on first-time writers and directors. The Full Monty, which he produced, came from nowhere to become an international hit and put Peter Cattaneo and Simon Beaufoy on the film-making map. Now, he has backed another couple of newcomers: writer William Ivory and director Aileen Ritchie. The Closer You Get is set in a village on Ireland's north-west coast where the birth rate is falling and the men are getting twitchy because of a lack of single young women. A group of bachelors, led by Ian Hart, take the matter into their own hands and place an ad in the Miami Herald calling for female companions. However, the local women get wind of the plan. The film was inspired by an article Pasolini read about a village in Spain, where the men regularly advertise for women in the Barcelona press. He recognised the potential of another film "about foolish men and strong women. I became interested in how the relationships between people in a small community would be affected by the notion of a fresh intake of women." For Ivory, it was a chance to explore small, working-class rural communities: "I wanted something that reflected that kind of humour, where people know each other's business. It can be both supportive and really annoying." Shot in Donegal, the film premiered at Locarno in July and will open in UK in the autumn.

Synopsis

Ronnie DeLorean is the reclusive Godfather of comedy. Only now can his story be told as an investigative film-maker reveals all.