Projects matching: ISO

Synopsis

'All the world's a stage, and all the men and woman are merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven.' William Shakespeare.





Merely Playing marries Shakespeare with Modern Britain and defines age through the family. With music from The Waterboys and Naomi.

Synopsis

A young boy is torn from his American roots and comes to live in a strange world where modern science is being used to free ancient foes, renewing a titanic struggle for dominion over the earth.





In ancient times the vast army of the evil sorcerer Mordred (Craig Sheffer) brought the legendary King Arthur Pendragon (Patrick Bergin) and his knights of the Round Table to their knees. In desperation, Merlin, the Wizard (Rik Mayall) used the immense power of Stonehenge to banish Mordred to the Netherworld and consigned Arthur and his knights to a long, dark sleep, promising future generations that Arthur would be on-hand to save the world should Mordred ever escape to threaten it again.





Fifteen hundred years later, Merlin's spell is the subject of legend - and is weakening. Scientist Joan Maxwell (Tia Carrere) is experimenting with the magnetic flows of the Earth, the precise source of Merlin's magic. She has made contact with Mordred and in return for his promise of power and freedom from the ethics that constrain modern science, is using her knowledge to free the sorcerer from his prison.





American teenager, Ritchie Gould is plunged into the ages-old battle when his father dies and Ritchie's mother moves them to her former home in England. When Ritchie arrives, Merlin's spell is already all but destroyed by Maxwell's meddling. Arthur and his knights are aware, fifteen hundred years out of place, and Mordred is preparing to forge a dimensional gate to freedom. The only thing standing between Mordred and success are the ragged loyalties of Lancelot (Adrian Paul) and Guinevere whom Merlin banished along with him.





In a tale of myth, mythology, demons and duels spanning fifteen centuries, the forces of good and evil once more do battle. And at stake is the world as we know it.

Synopsis

I speak of the Restorer of What Was Lost,

The Mender of What Was Broken.

Philip K. Dick


Mystery Play is an upbeat comic drama about a mysterious company who intervene in people's lives at times of crisis.


Sadie meets Jude at her therapists'. While waiting, they get talking, Jude revealing that he is there for a loan. Sadie suggests that Shelby, the therapist, might do financial work as a sideline (it's only her second visit). Jude feels that Shelby does counselling as a sideline . . .. Flashbacks reveal how they both came to be there, and the truth is emerges about the enigmatic Layton Shelby, who is neither a counsellor nor a financial advisor, but something more . . . much more.

Synopsis

Two boys are caught up their father's grief after their mother's death. But the arrival of their estranged grandmother sets in motion a power struggle that threatens to confront the ghosts of the past.

Synopsis

John Wallace stars as a sadistic prison warden spending the last hour with a condemned man. A film noir homage to the American prison films of the 1940s.

Synopsis

When producer Alison Owen first read the script for Rat, written by 65-year-old Irish writer Wesley Burrowes, she was convinced "it had been written by some post-modernist kid out of film school". An easy mistake to make given that the script she describes as a "Kafka comedy" is about a Guinness-loving man who comes home from the pub only to turn into a rat.



"For me, the joke was never that a man turns into a rat, it was more the humorous potential of a clash of perspectives," says Burrowes. "You have an ordinary family to whom this tragic thing happens and the real comedy is in the way they receive it. They're immensely pragmatic, ordinary, decent people and suddenly this calamity occurs and they proceed to treat it as if it's just one of those domestic events that are upsetting... like woodworm in the furniture."



Director Steve Barron signed on immediately, as did Stewart Till of Universal Pictures International. Production took place in Ireland in November 1999 with Imelda Staunton and Pete Postlethwaite in the key roles of wife and husband rat. Barron and Owen took the unusual decision to use real rather than animatronic rats.



"Our film is sort of opposite to films like Stuart Little or Babe," Owen explains. "Whereas those films are all about the audience imbuing the animal with human characteristics, in Rat the characters are imbuing the rats with human personalities and the audience sees this as completely ridiculous."



Rat premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh in July to great audience acclaim.

Synopsis

God, dammit, if you're gonna kill somebody have some fucking taste. I'll drive you to Kenny Roger's house, alright?



Bill Hicks, 1990 on John Lennon's untimely death.





Bill Hicks was a comedian. He died in 1994 at the age of 32.





Who?



Julia Menzies, 1994, on Bill Hicks' untimely death.





Julia Menzies (22) doesn't know what she wants to do with her life yet, but does know who Bill Hicks is now. In fact, it's her growing obsession with Bill that's fuelling her quest to find a vocation that doesn't demand compromise.





Perhaps the pub isn't the best place to look. And maybe her friends and advisors would have a little more credibility if their lives weren't quite so far from what they want them to be. But then this is Edinburgh, and the largest arts festival in the world is on hand to help Julia test if she really has the courage of her convictions. And if not, what's the point?

Synopsis

Love is eternal as long as it lasts. At the end of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet Romeo does not die; the poison he had been sold by the apothecary was cheap and was watered down. Today we find Romeo working at the checkout store that time forgot . . .

Synopsis

The dark story of a young man freed from prison who betrays his best friend to escape London's seedy and depraved underground crime world, Shooters was written nearly seven years ago by three friends, Gary Young, Andrew Howard and Louis Dempsey.



Last summer, they showed the script to young British directing and producing partnership Colin Teague and Marjory Bone of Cool Beans Productions, with whom Howard had worked as an actor on the 30-minute film North West One.



"I liked the fact that it was gritty and raw and not in the same vein as the more cheeky chappy gangster films that have come out," Bone explains. "It was very realistic in the way it dealt with drugs and guns and not at all glamorous."



Cool Beans agreed to produce the film with Dutch company Catapult Productions, run by Glenn Durfort, with whom Teague had studied at the London International Film School. Dutch producer Jan Bruinstroop came in as executive producer as both Bone and Teague were both first-time film-makers. The budget was raised via a private investor connected to Catapult Productions. Howard and Dempsey took the lead roles of the two friends while the cast was filled out with familiar names, such as Matthew Rhys and Ioan Gruffud. "We were lucky that Colin and Andrew played in a football team with some lads who happened to be up-and-coming British actors," says Bone.



Principal photography took place during November and December in London. The production took up residence in a huge disused warehouse above a McDonald's in the King's Cross area. In addition to providing sets and studio space, the warehouse also housed production offices, wardrobe and prop departments.



Several international sales agents are now in talks with Cool Beans to acquire the project.

Synopsis

A down-on-his-luck Italian backpacker thinks his luck has changed when he sees an advert for table help. But this is before he falls into the clutches of the owner of the Embassy Bar...

Synopsis

Jenny Adams, an immature young woman, hidden away from the world by her protective psychiatrist father, Dr Madsen Adams, is plagued by nightmares and visions. Some of these suggest that, as a child, she brutally killed her mother. At the time of her mother's death, the family lived in the grounds of the asylum which Dr Adams ran and it was assumed, although never proved, that one of the inmates was the killer.

Without her father's knowledge, Jenny enlists the help of William, a disturbed young man in Dr Adams' care, to help her to return to the now abandoned asylum to try to solve the mystery.

Once there she finds several former inmates, including a priest, Father Matthew, a medium Isobella, and a drug addict, Neville, sharing both her visions and the sudden, irresistible desire to return to the asylum.

When people again begin to die and Jenny is trapped within the decaying hulk of the asylum with her terrifying memories, she realises that she is in danger of losing both her sanity and her life.

Review from Edinburgh Film UK catalogue 2000

Boasting a cast that unites the queen of Hammer Horror with the saucy joker from the Confessions... films, The Asylum looks ripe for cult success.

Directed by John Stewart, whose short films The Break-In and Crash won many fans on the international festival circuit, The Asylum is a psychological thriller about a woman (Stephanie Pitt) tormented by the suspicion that, as a child, she killed her own mother. Teaming up with an unstable young man (Nick Waring), she returns to the mental hospital where her unbalanced father (Patrick Mower) used to practice. There she meets former inmates (Hammer queen Ingrid Pitt and Robin Askwith from the Confessions... films) and events take a murderous turn when they become trapped inside the asylum.

"The film is more of a thriller than a horror film," says producer Carol Lemon, who set up Nunhead Films with John Stewart to make genre films. "Casting Ingrid Pitt was not a cynical move: we thought about who would fit the part and asked them. Some said no, some said yes and she said yes. Then we met her daughter who we knew immediately would be perfect for the lead role."

When original financing failed to materialise, Lemon and Stewart raised the budget through the Enterprise Investment Scheme. The film premiered in June at the Fantafestival in Rome, where, says Lemon, it was enthusiastically received. She now is fielding offers from three US-based sales companies for international rights. In the meantime, Stewart is working on the company's next project. Also starring Ingrid Pitt, The Block is about a woman who moves into an apartment block and discovers that the neighbours are up to something sinister.

Synopsis

Callum Crane (Bill Pullman) is a high-powered lawyer on the verge of becoming a judge, fuelled by alcohol inspired lust, he commits an act that will have devastating consequences.





He assaults his pretty new legal assistant Sophie (Gabrielle Anwar). She subsequently threatens to expose him, to destroy both his career and his fragile relationship with his wife Nathalie (Joanne Whalley).





In the meantime, Nathan (Devon Sawa), a young petty criminal, discovers that Crane is his real father and decides to find him. By a strange twist of fate, Nathan is befriended by Sophie's roommate, Tanya (Angela Featherstone), after encountering her near Crane's office.





Finally, late one night, Nathan comes face to face with his father after he thwarts some hoodlums about to break into Crane's car. With no idea of his rescuer's true identity, Crane desperately offers Nathan money to kill the young woman who is about to wreak havoc on his life. The dramatic and complex chain of events unleashed by this act lead to Sophie's death. Although he is innocent, Nathan finds himself an accused killer and the subject of an enormous manhunt.





Ultimately Nathan confronts Crane with his paternity and later, during a terrifyingly dramatic confrontation, forces him into a full confession. In attempting to save both his son and himself, Crane subsequently concocts an intricate scheme that is destined both to fail and to succeed as fate deals the final ironic hand.