Projects

Synopsis

A drama based on a true story in which a restaurant chef haunted by his past, challenges a village mayor's opposition to a proposal for a motorway. The ramifications lead ultimately to devastation and inspiration, as seen through the eyes of a young restaurant pianist.  

Synopsis

This is a hard-hitting documentary about Condoleezza Rice, an extraordinary but little understood woman who rose from segregated Alabama to become the most powerful woman in the world. Incisive and shocking, this is the first retrospective film on the Bush Administration. It overturns the popular misconception of Rice as a yes-woman to President Bush to reveal her as his most enduring confidante, and thus responsible for much of the Bush legacy. This political, biographical documentary tells a Faustian story of a woman whose hubris tempted her into a pursuit of power that destroyed her core values, and hurtled America into a perilous new direction.   Dr Rice leads her own defense, through a series of candid interviews. We have exclusive interviews with her three most authoritative biographers: Marcus Mabry (Twice As Good); Glenn Kessler (The Confidante); and Antonia Felix (Condi).   The film's most disturbing revelations center on Rice's role as Chair of the group of 'Principals', whose role was to select and authorize torture techniques, which included water-boarding, fingernail extraction, and sleep deprivation. Condi signed off on the orders to the CIA with the words, 'This is your Baby, go do it!'.

Synopsis

Born into a world of wealth and privilege, he devotes his life to eliminating poverty and inequality. A religious leader who traces his ancestry back to the Prophet Muhammad, he struggles to balance the traditional with the modern. His Highness the Aga Khan is the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, a Shia sect with 15 million followers around the world. At a time when Islam is at odds with itself and with the West, the Aga Khan represents a voice of moderation, speaking out for pluralism and diversity, and promoting dialogue between civilizations. But will he be heard?  

Synopsis

A writer returns, disillusioned, to London and Paris. He begins on a story: a sleeper cell of young, glamorous urban terrorists. Gabriella, glamorous trophy wife of a young king-in-exile, holed up in an opulent London riverside penthouse, falls under the spell of a modern-day Che Guevara and, Patty Hearst-style, enlists in The Cause. She is sent to Paris under the 'front' of a drama student aiming at film. She takes her studies exceptionally seriously: encounters Bernard Stiegler, the leading philosopher on the subject of cinema and the human condition, and other luminaries. And she meets fellow-"student" activists, half-sister and -brother Julia and Sam, skilled actors who seem more interested in petty crime and scams. Their father is a political prisoner held in London; is he the master-mind? Has he been grooming them since childhood? Our writer adopts the persona of a sleuth as he follows these anti-heroes. Books are passed, stolen: do they bear coded messages? Why is Gabriella obsessed with capturing her interviews on an outdated Nagra tape-recorder? What is their connection with the incipient terrorism on the city streets? So our writer/sleuth uncovers events; but is he documenting actuality, or inventing a fiction?

Synopsis

Ana’s husband has died. She finds herself alone, isolated in her home on the outskirts of a rural village in North Devon, trying to start again. It is a cold February; grey, wet, misty days blur into one. At first Frazer is there as support, a solid presence, a man’s man: someone to lean on. Yet Frazer is also lost. Ana is young and beautiful; he is older, trapped in a marriage that died years ago. The relationship develops. There is tension; it’s complicated. Guilt is felt on both sides and as time passes Frazer begins to fall in love with her. Confused emotions and suppressed desire drive the two towards inevitable  conflict until finally Ana must confront her true feelings for Frazer and, with  or without him, move on. And this can be her only certainty: that by the end, things will be beginning again. Ana Begins is a subtle and intricate love story that explores and embraces the confusions of suppressed desire.

Synopsis

A doctor develops a strange illness – anaphylaxis, a severe allergy to human skin. He struggles with his inability to touch people until he discovers that dead bodies don’t trigger his illness. He changes his job to work as a pathologist, dealing only with dead bodies. This is when he encounters a dead poet. Her corpse appears in his autopsy lab, tattooed from neck to toe with writing. Imprisoned as wife and mother, she suffered from postnatal depression. Writing was her only solace, but she sought escape so much it became a dangerous obsessive compulsive disorder. Her psychiatrist forbade her to write. But she did, tattooing her body with her life’s story – and died as a result. As the doctor reads her tattooed story he discovers a profound bond between his solitude and hers. She becomes his only chance for a human connection and he reaches to her across the boundaries of death with one last act – of love.

Synopsis

A psychological romantic drama which deals with one man's struggle with his conscience as he realises that he has become his own worst hate: the 'other' man. He must now decide which is stronger: the hate that he feels for himself, or the love that he feels for his partner.

Synopsis

Marwan is a Palestinian in love. He's finally met Lisa, the girl he's going to marry. Everything about her is perfect - she was even born on the same day as Chairman Arafat! But does Lisa know the significance of this coincidence?

Synopsis

Teenage exams are tough: at ballet school and at the local comprehensive.

Synopsis

Commissioned as part of the 'Bridging the Gap' production scheme, At Home with the Jedi is a domestic portrait about faith, family and future, meeting the founders of the UK's Church of Jediism, whose galactic ambitions reach far beyond their small town existence.

Synopsis

Almost everyone has watched a movie in which a person, viewed straight on through the windshield, alone or with passengers, drives a car for some distance. The memorable thing about the scene is that the driver seems to have almost no physical relationship to the vehicle and barely seems to be making any effort to operate it. It is no secret to anyone that what we are watching is a composite scene in which the exterior has been photographed previously and then projected behind the set-up in which the performers have been filmed. Mark Lewis has been fascinated by the technique of back projecting for years and has used it with startling and unusual effects in his work. In Backstory, Lewis invited the Hansard family, which has been instrumental in the provision and development of rear projection for hundreds of Hollywood productions over several decades, to tell (with humour and straight-laced directness) their own story of the heyday of the techniques and their decline and disappearance as they are replaced by new technologies and new tastes in visibility.

Synopsis

A woman escapes domestic violence but finds she's still mixing in bad company. A classic tale of obsession, Jane wrestles free from David's twisted love, thanks to a best friend from the past. Once Jane re-establishes her identity, she breathes easily again. But things will never be quite that easy, and Jane soon realises she no longer knows whom to trust.