Projects

Synopsis

Two detectives find themselves on the frontline of the war against food crimes in this mock documentary.

Synopsis

Hugh, a young would-be-filmmaker, sets out to record the insignificant lives of his slacker friends with a camcorder. When one of them has an idea for a get rich quick scheme, an epic journey begins into the world of London's sex industry.





In Hugh's own words:





'It all began as a bit of fun, videotaping a couple of friends wandering aimlessly through their lives. When Tom (out of work actor Tom Foxton) had the idea for his male escort business, no one took him seriously except me. I knew it would be a disaster, but I also knew it might prove hilarious watching him fail'





'I think the presence of the camera spurred everyone on. Once I had persuaded Tom and his friends to get involved they soon became prostitutes for their few minutes of fame. Each in turn tried to take control of the agency and put themselves in the spotlight as the business spiralled out of control.'





'I borrowed a hidden camera and a radio mike to record intimate moments in restaurants, cabs and hotel bedrooms. We got shouted at, thrown out and even chased out of a brothel.'





'Poor Tom had no idea what he was getting us all into. I still can't believe what happened to him.'

Synopsis

The film tells the story, based on true events, of a female journalist who, with little concern for her own safety, took on the bloody force of the Dublin criminal underworld at great cost to herself. The story starts in 1995 with Sinead Hamilton (Joan Allen) already deep into an investigation of the Dublin Mafia.


Racing at 100 miles an hour through the Dublin hills, we find Sinead interviewing the notorious armed robber Martin Shaughnessy (Peter Postlethwaite) as his car screeches through the narrow country lanes. Shaughnessy insists that the corruption and degradation of Dublin is due, not to the likes of him - everyday armed robbers - but to the ruthless gangs running the ever growing and vastly profitable drug business. A business that corrupts all that it touches. These are the people that Sinead wants to expose; the drug barons gorging themselves on the city.


Soon after the interview is published Shaugnessy is assassinated. At the murder scene Sinead meets Mackey (Patrick Bergin), a local Police Detective. Mackey is the classic cynical cop - tough, angry and tired. Though he knows he's fighting a losing battle investigating these sorts of crimes, there's still just enough of the idealist left, to make him carry on. However, though Sinead and Mackey have the same purpose, their methods could not be more different.


So the scene is set. Heavily out-gunned in every respect, Sinead risks everything in her relentless pursuit of the underworld gangsters with only her wit, guile and sheer bravery to protect her. It's an investigation in which she discovers that truth has a cost, and that ultimately someone has to pay . . .

Synopsis

The most significant day in a normal life full of normal days.

Synopsis

Set in Ireland, Wild About Harry tells the story of chat show host Harry McKee (Brendan Gleeson), once a loving husband but now a drunken and unfaithful slob. His wife (Amanda Donohoe) is washing her hands of him, but on the eve of their divorce he is beaten up and falls into a week-long coma. When he wakes up he has forgotten 25 years of his life. Although he doesn't know it, Harry has been given the chance to get back his life, his family and his self-respect - if only he could remember how it all went wrong.



Wild About Harry re-unites writer Colin Bateman with producer Robert Cooper, following 1998's Divorcing Jack. Bateman came up with the idea for the film from a newspaper clipping about a man who had been involved in an accident and couldn't remember anything after the age of 18.



However, it took four years to hone the script. First-time feature director Declan Lowney was brought on board early in the project. "Declan's talent shone out, particularly in the area of humour, but also in its romantic sensibility," says Cooper.



Two years later and the film was finally financed and cast. Lowney had Brendan Gleeson in mind from the beginning for the role of Harry, although the part of Ruth proved harder to fill. "Once we met Amanda [Donohoe], we felt she had the qualities we were looking for," says producer Laurie Borg.



James Nesbitt plays the role of a crazed politician who is stalking Harry, while George Wendt of Cheers fame plays the part of Harry's TV producer.



Wild About Harry was filmed in Ireland over an eight-week shoot in autumn 1999. Its first screening was at Cannes in 2000.

Synopsis

This is a short film about love at first sight. It happens in the time when love transforms the world from physical to metaphysical; when people, things and places become different. Wildlife combines dramatic action with dance on a journey into dream territory, mixing Celtic mythology, Shanghai pop and modern mysticism.

Synopsis

A dark fairytale, reminiscent of Angela Carter, in which innocence is tinged with menace.

Synopsis

A stricken boat heads blindly towards the rocks while its crew dances the tango. A lighthouse keeper sings in the bath, oblivious of the impending disaster. The lighthouse lamp blows out. The keeper's wife hangs by a thread on the lighthouse wall. It takes a bicycling policeman, a fisherman's choir and a group of lady campanologists to resolve this high-tension musical comedy.

Synopsis

One city, so many ex-boyfriends! A marriage proposal triggers Carolina into remembering three past relationships as she wanders through Manhattan. Window Shopping is a funny, affectionate and irreverent look at past loves and lusts.

Synopsis

Michael E Scott, 'international vocalist', is a club singer who spends his life on the road performing his cabaret act to uncaring audiences. Confident and optimistic, he believes success is just around the corner. Is he deluding himself, or does he really have talent?

Synopsis

Women Talking Dirty is a touching comic story of two women who truly test the meaning of the phrase 'best friends'. Coming from disparate worlds, these two friends bond through a chance meeting followed by a series of unpredictable events. Ellen is a shy, but successful cartoonist who falls hopelessly in love and marries a seductively compulsive gambler, Daniel. The feisty Cora, falls head over heels for a Frenchman named Claude and winds up becoming a single mother trying to make ends meet. Together, Ellen and Cora help each other with all life throws at them - lovers, divorce, children, debts and too much vodka.





A colourful and quirky group of characters surround them. Stanley, Ellen's boss, coaches her on relationships while secretly holding a candle for Cora. Ronald and George seem to have unlocked the secret to a lasting relationship, while the enigmatic Emily Boyle understands all. With cosmopolitan Edinburgh for a backdrop, Women Talking Dirty tells the story of Cora and Ellen and the unravelling of a dark secret they unknowingly share.

Synopsis

The second feature from Stella Does Tricks director Coky Giedroyc, Women Talking Dirty charts the ups and downs in the relationship between two friends in Edinburgh: headstrong single mother Cora (Helena Bonham Carter) and shy but successful cartoonist Ellen (Gina McKee) who is struggling to support her no-good gambling husband. As they gamely deal with the vicissitudes of life, their friendship is tested but ultimately proves too strong to crumble.



The film is based on the popular novel by Scottish author Isla Dewar, published in 1996, and marks the debut production from Elton John's Rocket Pictures, which acquired the rights to the novel and then brought on board Giedroyc on the strength of her previous film. Rocket then teamed up with Jean Doumanian, the New York-based producer best known for her collaborations with Woody Allen, in an Anglo-American co-production. The work-in-progress print was screened at last year's Toronto Film Festival, since when the film has been back into the cutting rooms for fine-tuning. It has just been completed.



Meanwhile, Rocket Pictures is developing a number of features across the genres and budget ranges, including the partly-animated Just So series, in co-production with the Walt Disney Co, and So I Am Glad, an adaptation of another Scottish novel, this time by AL Kennedy, which will be co-produced and star husband and wife team Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.