Projects matching: ISO

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.

Synopsis

A young Japanese man, who is living in self-inflicted isolation, meets an old man who is waiting for his death. They develop a silent friendship.

Synopsis

Woven in with a constantly surprising and colourful thriller plot, Five Seconds to Spare is the witty and poignantly observed story of William, a young aspiring musician who pins his hopes in London, the dream city which will bring him rock 'n' roll success and true romance.





Only trouble is, in reality, William's life is beset with frustration: his witless band seem intent upon turning his dark, heartfelt songs into commercial pop; the coolly desirable Madeleine hangs out of reach and even catching a bus on a Sunday seems a hopeless act of faith. Things could hardly get any worse, but they do - when he becomes the only witness to a bizarre murder.

Synopsis

1974, Alan Riply (Joseph Fiennes), a young idealistic 23 year old, works as a beach boy at an exclusive Miami resort. There he dreams of one day owning his own Hotel but resists the temptations and short cut to riches taken by his peers by dealing in drugs and working in the underworld. Alan meets the recently married Ella (Gretchen Mol), the young wife of middle-aged and ruthless New York businessman Mark Brice, with whom she is on vacation.





Alan falls deeply in love with Ella and against her instincts and knowing it's wrong to do so, she starts a passionate affair with him. Aware the liaison is doomed, Ella determines to finish it at the end of her trip but Alan will not be thwarted and follows her back to New York.





There, he continues to court her but when Ella loses her nerve and confesses all to Brice he becomes mad with rage and takes swift and vicious retribution. He frames Alan in a drugs raid and subsequently visits him in prison and on hearing Alan remaining defiant and still refusing to stay away from Ella, attempts to have him killed by other inmates during a routine prison transfer. Although, unknown to Brice that his action has failed, Alan is left permanently scarred, both physically and emotionally. He retreats to Florida to begin a healing process which will take years but never forgets his love for Ella nor forgives her husband. He also changes, literally, into a new man and after thirteen years certainly not the one recognisable as the young beach boy in Florida.





1987, in the intervening time Alan has become successful and formidable in his own right with his own dubious connections. At last he goes back to New York with a new identity, 'Manuel Esquema', to claim his lost love. He returns to find Brice has huge legal and political problems and not recognising Alan, is desperate for help. He has no idea that Alan has come back to gain revenge and reclaim the lost love of his life . . .

Synopsis

A visually stunning film, both beautiful and bizarre, Frog enters a dark fairytale world where mysterious frog creatures enter a house over successive nights and steal the eyes of the three strange residents only to replace them with surreal clockwork eyes that need to be wound by a special key.

Synopsis

Based on real-life events, Joel Hershman's Greenfingers is a triumph-over-adversity story, starring Helen Mirren, Clive Owen and Natasha Little, about a man serving a long-term prison sentence who unexpectedly discovers a love of gardening. His talent is recognised by a famous horticulturist and he goes on to compete in the world's biggest garden show, win the heart of the woman he loves and regain his will to live.



US producer Travis Swords first read the story in 1998 in a piece in the New York Times by Paula Deitz called Free To Grow Bluebells In England. Swords had been looking for the right feature to back following his 1992 film, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, directed by Hershman.



Swords and Hershman then teamed up with BoneYard Entertainment's Daniel J Victor, who had previously helped to finance and executive produce such films as Sling Blade and Henry Fool. Victor set up an equity fund called Motion Pictures Partners to finance and produce two to three features a year, of which Greenfingers is the first. Trudie Styler's London-based Xingu Films then came on board as co-executive producer and the Los Angeles-based Overseas FilmGroup took worldwide sales rights.



Greenfingers shot on location in England in the summer of 1999. It will premiere either later this year or in 2001.