Projects matching: ISO

Synopsis

Against a backdrop of racial tension and industrial unrest in the Welsh Valleys of 1911, Solomon and Gaenor tells the moving and passionate story of illicit love between a Welsh girl and a Jewish boy. Gaenor, born into a family of strict chapel-goers, falls for Solomon, a young pedlar, who conceals his Jewish identity from Gaenor and her family. The couple, from similar yet very distinctive worlds, fall helplessly in love. The odds are against them, however, as the outraged community in which they live, conspires to destroy their fragile happiness.

Synopsis

In the spirit of The Full Monty and The Commitments, Swing is the heartwarming, triumphant story of working class friends who break free from their bleak Liverpool lives to follow their dreams and launch a swing band. Young Martin finds himself in prison, the fall guy for his brother. When Martin gets out, the guards hand him two years of unopened love letters and a warning: get a job or end up back in jail. Home is just as he left it - hopeless. Martin's only hope comes from the sage advice from his sax-playing cell mate, Jack, who taught him how to see his future and how to play it. Martin decides to start his own band. He recruits bassist Buddy, a skirt chasing football star, drummer Oi, an ex-skinhead, and a brass section made up of bar flies who owe his dad a favour. But the one person who can transform the band from a dream to success is the beautiful singer Joan, the love of Martin's life. Joan, married to Martin's arresting officer, wonders if this is just another one of Martin's dead end dreams. Martin convinces them all, most of all Joan, that their dream is worth fighting for. Despite a raid staged by Joan's jealous husband, the band's break-through gig is a smashing success and it lands them a recording contract, a happy ending! That is . . . until the police find that Martin's brother backed the band with stolen money and Martin ends up back in jail. But this time Martin walks out of jail with Jack and finds Joan and his band waiting and ready to swing!

Synopsis

A dark contemporary thriller set in Edinburgh. Nick Dryden has just been released from prison after serving 16 years for murder. In his youth he was Edinburgh's most notorious and violent criminal but his rehabilitation has been remarkable, and now he finds himself a free man once more, married to a successful journalist and much lauded in the art world for his striking and disturbing sculptures. For Gary Keltie, the policeman who arrested him, life has been different. Depressed by the futility of his job and alone in the world apart from his ageing mother, he is outraged by Dryden's new found success and makes it his mission to sabotage it. Flipper, a seriously disturbed adolescent gangster working his way up on the criminal ladder, is also obsessed by Dryden albeit for reasons of hero worship rather than hatred. The three men are on a collision course in this modern Scottish myth showing the extremes of human nature.

Synopsis

An elderly man runs a small isolated store, somewhere in rural South Africa. After suffering a series of burglaries which culminates in the murder of a night-watchman, the storekeeper takes the law into his own hands, with tragic consequences.

Synopsis

The mark of a man is how he acts under pressure. Does he keep his head when others are losing it? When all seems lost does he stand by his comrades? When reward or crushing failure depends on a last throw of the dice does he elect to take it? Can he wait and endure the waiting? Career crooks Bennett, Walker and Turner gather for a major heist. They wait in uneasy peace for their boss. Instead a young stranger arrives, alleging to have been sent. Only one of the three believes him. Fears and old grievances drives wedges between them. Each man tested to breaking point as the pressure of their self imposed prison builds inexorably towards an emotionally explosive and group shattering climax.

Synopsis

From 'hot summer sex' in Majorca, to 'moral economics' in Scotland. To celebrate his 70th birthday, the acclaimed Scots-born writer and poet Alastair Reid reflects on life at the prestigious New Yorker Magazine and his unique friendship with Robert Graves, Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda.

Synopsis

Somewhere in the affluent suburbs of London, young Bobby is a prisoner in his own home - a silent mansion ruled with a rod of iron by his sinister stepfather, Bernard DeWinter. Still suffering from the effects of a car accident when he was young, Bobby will, it seems always be a child in a man's body. But when Bobby's mother dies his life changes forever. Immediately after the funeral, DeWinter reveals his plans to take over the family business, home and the helpless boy's life. But when Bobby is pushed to sign the papers that would make it possible, he refuses forcing DeWinter to deliver a damning ultimatum. Faced with being institutionalised, Bobby escapes from the darkened house and begins a journey of enlightenment through the English countryside. A chance lift with a lorry driver who deliberately runs down a fox brings Bobby in contact with a country nomad, Mr Summers. Summers sees himself as a guardian of wildlife, caring for animals in danger and burying animals killed by humans. Bobby happily joins in The Work, finding warmth and quiet words; light and hope, with his strange new friend and tutor. Bobby's past soon begins to catch up with him and he tells all to Mr Summers who in turn confesses his own dark secrets. The man and boy return to London to confront DeWinter but their plan goes disastrously wrong. After an ugly and violent climax Bobby is once again left to fend for himself. However strengthened by his experiences and finally free of DeWinter, Bobby confidently embraces his new life.

Synopsis

Anita's got attitude and ambition. She plans to be a DJ, dancehall diva, dropping sweet lyrics to wind up the dancefloor. She has a style to make bodies wind... for she is Princess Neeta... 'Mistress of the Mic'... if it wasn't for.... her two kids, if it wasn't for Byron, the kid's father - a singerman himself, who ain't around that much but thinks his babymother should be at home looking after his children. If it wasn't that her mother loves the church so much and disapproves of the dancehall. Babymother is Anita's story. At first a woman-child, selfish yet naive, street-smart yet vulnerable. A girl as yet unable to face the responsibilities of her children or her life. A girl travelling along the bumpy road to adulthood, through the tough, deeply male world of reggae music. Set against a backdrop of Harlesden's tenement housing, Babymother is a journey into the explosion of colour, passion and style that is the dancehall!

Synopsis

The richest man ever to appear on 'Coronation Street', Bill Kenwright retraces his steps from humble beginnings to West End glitz and glamour. Join one of Britain's most famous impresarios as he recasts 'Blood Brothers', watches Everton lose again from the directors box at Goodison and goes to Broadway for the Tony Awards.

Synopsis

A young boy is rejected by his parents because of his physical disability. He is imprisoned in the house, but finds that he can free himself by entering the mind of a buzzard which haunts its prey around the family farm.

Synopsis

A true story of love, bravery and endurance. A Welsh guardsman, John Elwyn, is captured in the first year of the Second World War, and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. Young and fearless, he refuses to submit to imprisonment and, driven by a burning desire to be free, he escapes again and again, only to be recaptured each time. But this is not only a war-time escape story. John falls in love with a beautiful Polish girl, Celinka, and the couple are married in a secret wedding ceremony on Christmas Eve. In the turmoil of war, their happiness cannot last and the two are separated within hours of their marriage. Tragically, Celinka is already fatally ill. Her death binds the young soldier to the Polish cause and he joins the Polish Freedom Fighters and fights alongside his adopted countrymen until he is captured again - only to make one last desperate bid to escape.

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.