Projects

Synopsis

An ingenious and unpredictable story of the wheel of chance, of good luck against bad, of fate against coincidence, of plot against destiny. It is told from the inside, through the life and feelings of an anonymous croupier.





In our age of uncertainty, it is about the deep need for security set against the temptations of risk. The story is an original take on the universal obsession with gambling. Constructed like a night spent in a casino, winning one minute, losing the next, Croupier is paced like a thriller. Each twist of the story exposes the eternally divided personalities of men. And women.

Synopsis

Kevin Miller is a young journalist who travels everywhere on his mountain bike; his 'cycle of violence' has been sent by his Belfast newspaper editor to work on its sister paper in the small country town of Crossmaheart. Jamie Milburn, his predecessor on the local paper, has disappeared, presumed dead. Arriving in the town, Miller finds that his new editor is doing little to find out what has happened to Jamie, who has now been missing for two weeks. The paper likes to sit on the fence and the editor tells Miller not to become involved. Shortly after his arrival, Miller meets Jamie's girlfriend, Marie and immediately the two of them are attracted to each other. She tells him that she believes that Jamie was killed because of a story he was working on. Despite warnings from his editor, he decides to carry out his own investigation.





With the help of police sergeant Craig, Miller unravels a web of intrigue going back over fifteen years, at the same time unlocking Marie's ghosts of the past. Undeterred by threats and physical violence, Miller pursues his investigation to the end. Finally justice is done and Miller and Marie, now in love, return to Belfast. The film, both a black comedy and a love story, was shot entirely on location in Northern Ireland, using Belfast and the towns of Banbridge, Dromore and Rathfriland to combine as the town of Crossmaheart.

Synopsis

Dad Savage believes in the law - his law. He has been saving his criminal earnings for 30 years and hidden it away where no one can find it. But Dad's two new recruits find out where it is and nothing is going to stop them. Except maybe Dad himself.

Synopsis

Dance of the Lion is a film about a Lion Dance Troupe in Bristol. Several overseas students, from ex-British colonies, have decided to share a part of their culture with the people in the UK. We see how colours, festivals and rituals are introduced to the people of Bristol and the dance that captivates its audience.

Synopsis

Set in contemporary New Delhi, Dance of the Wind follows a young singer, Pallavi Sehgel, whose successful professional life comes to a sudden halt at the death of the woman and musician who was both her mother and teacher. She loses her voice and with that her career, students, and finally, it seems, her husband. At first it appears that she is simply grief-stricken. But her silence persists. The efforts of those closest to her to discover the reason fail.





The answer lies in her own desire for the pure music she once heard as a child, in the veiled past of her mother's death and in the laws of the sacred tradition itself... A strange old mendicant appears at the hour of her mother's death, accompanied by a young girl, Tara, who sings with a voice of angelic beauty. Pallavi is haunted by the child's voice, but she proves to be as elusive as she is entrancing. The only acknowledgement she offers Pallavi is to disappear into the shadows from whence she came.





And the old man, is he her mother's teacher, who renounced the world for mysterious reasons many years ago? Or is he just another wandering madman? If he is truly 'Baba', of whom her mother rarely spoke, then perhaps he also holds the key to her voice.





With perseverance, however, and with help of the young girl, Pallavi comes to learn that the old man communicates his knowledge in dreams and visions.





Pallavi's downfall sees everything she holds dear stripped away. While her husband, a usurping pupil and a ferocious critic all have a part to play in her journey through silence and near madness in the nightmare of a market place, Pallavi somehow finds the strength to reconstruct herself as a link in the ancient chain.

Synopsis

The Driscolls have a lifestyle to be envied; successful, rich and glamorous, they travel in private jets and live in beautiful mansions. But there is a down side. Mark Driscoll is jetting back to the Isle of Man to close a deal. A deal that could save his life. Whilst his household is preparing an extravagant feast for Mark's banker, Mr Hayter, somebody is watching the Driscoll Mansion. Fastidiously, obsessively, noting down the movements of the staff, letting his binoculars rest on the alluring Sally Driscoll. One by one, the staff leave, carefully noted by the man and Sally allows herself finally to relax with a long, long drink, and a soak in the Jacuzzi.





The voyeur cunningly gains entrance to the mansion; a semi-naked Sally is confronted by this strange intruder. But John Barret says he knows her. That they've met. Shared a table at a Masonic dinner and dance. Vague memories of a distant, drunken evening are triggered. In flashback we see the Driscolls forced to share a table with an innocuous couple, 'Hoi Polloi', Sally had called them. Whilst Sally is covering herself, John Barret starts meticulously dismantling the security system without her noticing. Mark Driscoll returns, with that 'disarming smile': no problem, all the man wants is money, isn't that what everybody wants? Although apprehensive he can't take the intrusion seriously, intent as he is on this deal. He just wants John to go away. And his wife to stay sober. John has other plans. It seems his wife, Jane, was in a dreadful accident and obviously unhinged by this, John wants to talk it through, finally producing a gun to command Mark's attention. Mark, still intent on ridiculing John, provokes him to prove his marksmanship with chilling effect......

Synopsis

A documentary journey into the life of a Buddhist nun as she goes in search of a female approach to spirituality.

Synopsis

As pure style, dreadlocks cross social boundaries of race, politics, sex and even economics. But for some their dreads are a statement of being, a way of life - and their only connection with their African origins and identity. Is white appropriation of dreadlocks the theft of black culture or a sign that the African spirit will lead us into the next millennium? The future's dread, the future's bright, the future's black.

Synopsis

As pure style, dreadlocks cross social boundaries of race, politics, sex and even economics. But for some their dreads are a statement of being, a way of life - and their only connection with their African origins and identity. Is white appropriation of dreadlocks the theft of black culture or a sign that the African spirit will lead us into the next millennium? The future's dread, the future's bright, the future's black.

Synopsis

When the stress of running a large business in an increasingly competitive world became too much to bear, Jeff Baker's wife and associates conspire to have him sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983. Now, six months later, he is entitled to an informal Mental Health Review Tribunal to determine his fitness to return to society.





Initially, the panel recommend a conditional discharge that amounts to little more than granting him 'Day Release', under the foolish assumption that nothing could go wrong in one day.





But the intervening months have wreaked havoc on both his private and business life, and in his attempt to rebuild them, he is told that his parents are dead, his kids have flown the nest to join obscure cults, his wife has run off with his business partner whose embezzling tendencies have resulted in the total collapse of their company which is now being controlled by their former accountant, under his deceptive guise as The Official Receiver.





As Jeff accumulates the evidence that is to prove that both he and his wife have been misled, manipulated, cheated and lied to, he acquires a string of witnesses who all, without exception, suffer from one form of phobia or another. In effect, he comes to realise what the medical profession has known all along, that everyone in the world is neurotic, it's just that some of these neuroses, such as an obsession with money, have become generally approved of by society.

Synopsis

A tale of political fanatics on the run from the authorities. The identical inhabitants of a future world lead lives of mindless compliance and conformity held in check by a brutal police state. A siren sounds and the inhabitants obediently line up to enter huge municipal sleeping blocks.

Synopsis

It is the turn of the century in a sleepy North country market town. Two young boys Arthur and Wilfred, dream of adventure - of going to war to fight for King and Country. Though still at school and under age for Kitchener's army, this does not stop them enlisting. As they board the troop train for the war front in their newly pressed army uniforms all family feuds are forgotten. Yet nothing could have prepared them for the hell that waited in the trenches, in the mud, on the barbed wire, in the squalor of shattered limbs that once were brave men.





On recuperative leave home, Arthur falls deeply in love with Amy his girlfriend - and makes every hour count. However, back at the front, Arthur and Will are no longer boys but men grown old beyond their time - scarred by the slaughter of life. Into this hopelessness comes brief news of happiness - Arthur is to be a father. Now the real battle is on to stay alive for at last there is hope.





But sadly fate has a different course to run, for Arthur is riddled with machine gun fire while attempting to save the life of a wounded soldier. For Will this is a dreadful end to a wonderful friendship - for the generals just another statistic of the Great World War. But life must go on...and Will on returning home sees the future in the eyes of Arthur's child - the hopes, the dreams of a new generation.