Projects matching: ISO

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

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

Following a successful job interview in London, Alison asks her old school friends to leave their Brighton homes to flatshare up in the capital. Taryn already commutes to London where she works as a graphic designer while aimless, unemployed Charlie agrees to sleep on the inflatable sofa in the lounge.

Over the course of the next three months there will be enough sex, death, poetry and daytime television to try the patience of even the closest friends.

Synopsis

French/German border - late 1944. The forests of the Ardennes. A platoon of battle-weary German soldiers, forced into confusion and retreat by advancing Allied forces, take refuge in an isolated Siegfried Line bunker. As night falls and a rainstorm begins to blow, the exhausted soldiers huddle in the concrete shelter - trapped by the advancing GI's.

A brief and violent assault upon the Bunker from the surrounding Americans is followed by a period of tense calm and, in the cold darkness of the bunker, the wise older soldier, MIRUS, mischievously relates to the others a story he'd heard from locals in the nearby village. The ancient surrounding forest, he reveals, is haunted; witches were burned here in the middle ages and, during the Black Death, the infected victims had been slaughtered and buried here, in an attempt to cleanse the village. At the same time, the newcomers also learn of adjoining tunnels, which connect the bunker to an abandoned underground munitions storage complex which might well be the only way out.

An eerie noir thriller in the classic tradition of Val Lewton's 'psychological horror' films of the 1940's, relying on character, mood and inference, rather than the contemporary trend of graphic violence - a chilling metaphorical tale which combines the best elements of Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron and Robert Wise's The Haunting.

Synopsis

The Navigators follows the fortunes of a group of rail track workers based at a South Yorkshire depot as the privatisation of British Rail takes effect. When Harpic (so called because he's clean around the bend), the depot boss, gives Paul, Mick and the rest of the gang their new working brief, the company's 'mission statement', 'performance-related pay' and no paid holidays seems like a joke. But before long the choice is very clear to the gang; take their chances with redundancy cash and life as casual agency workers, or work for the company under the new rules...

Synopsis

A highly stylised intimate portrait of the fantastic life of Louis Armstrong. The film charts the story of the innovator, the first great jazz soloist, bandleader, pop star, actor and American cultural ambassador, Louis Armstrong.

Narrated by Danny Glover, The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong is a sensitive insight into the life of the man behind the trumpet; an epic story that spans 70 years from his childhood days on the streets of New Orleans to the glamorous Hollywood films like High Society and Hello Dolly, punctuated by timeless hits like What a Wonderful World and When You're Smiling.

Synopsis

A raw, passionate and darkly humorous interpretation of Zola's classic novel The Earth.

Francine and Kath are sisters who run the farm of their deceased parents in an isolated rural village. Kath has a daughter by Buto who, greedy for land, proposes to Kath on her coming of age and subsequent inheritance of the farm. Francine dislikes Buto and, in seeking comfort from her life of unrelenting toil and hardship, develops a relationship with the outsider, Lek. Francine's family and close-knit community fiercely disapprove of this liaison and begin to wage war on the stranger, which has destructive consequences for the whole village.

Synopsis

Giacomo Campiotti's A Time To Love is a romantic drama spanning 100 years and three different couples. Ciaran Hinds and Juliet Aubrey star in the first episode as two lovers in colonial Africa during the Boer War, whose passionate love affair is frustrated by the conventions of the time. The film then skips to Nazi-occupied Paris, where the relationship between a young French woman and her Russian lover unravels because of her jealousy. Finally, in contemporary Italy, a young girl nurses a teenage boy back to health through her devotion.

Campiotti, whose debut Like Two Crocodiles won a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign film in 1995, employed unorthodox means to research his film. Keen to write about love, he asked first friends, then strangers - through a small ad in a newspaper - for stories about love. His only stipulation was that they be real. Sifting through the mountains of letters and notes he was sent, he realised that there were key moments that all the stories shared, which mirrored the seasons of the year. He then teamed up with Alexander Adabachian, with whom he co-wrote Like Two Crocodiles.

With financing in place from Italian, French and British sources and a European cast including Ciaran Hinds, Juliet Aubrey and Natacha Regnier, the film cranked up its staggered shoot in late 1998. It premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 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".

Synopsis

Matt and Ross leave Birmingham behind for a weeks holiday in Brighton. Matt is cynical, love can't touch him. Ross meanwhile is a nervous mothers boy on the verge of another breakdown.

The film follows the lads' antics and subsequent liaisons during their week away. Matt drives into the local prostitute scene while Ross is seduced by local girl Kelly, who takes a firm hand with him and his rubber wearing fetish.

Matt's desperate for love, even though he doesn't realise it, and Ross is getting all the love he can handle.

At the end of the holiday, the question is, do they return home or start a fresh life in Brighton?

Beach Boys is a fresh, touching and unusual take on male sexual angst.

Synopsis

Telephone confessors relate true stories of sexual embarrassment.

Synopsis

Sam Morrison challenges the view that old is senile in his debut film, Emma 18. Emma's quiet life of semi-retirement is disrupted by the surprise family visit of Sylvie, Derek, Tom & Otis who are just passing on their way home. Their flying visit is abruptly ended by an upsetting phone call, yet Emma seems strangely unperturbed.