Projects matching: ISO

Synopsis

Edinburgh 1926, the great Harry Houdini arrives for the grand finale of his international tour. There, he offers a prize to anyone who can contact the dead and reveal the last words uttered by his dying mother. Mary, a struggling Scottish psychic, and her nine year-old daughter Benji hear of the offer and decide to out-con Houdini. Instantly bewitched, Houdini is convinced that Mary is who he's looking for. Mary soon finds herself seduced by Houdini's charms and drawn into his world of illusion and dark secrets. As the stakes increase, it soon becomes a question of who is out-conning who?

Synopsis

The Golden Age finds Queen Elizabeth I facing bloodlust for her throne and familial betrayal. Growing keenly aware of the changing religious and political tides of late 16th century Europe, Elizabeth finds her rule openly challenged by the Spanish King Philip II with his powerful army and sea-dominating armada—determined to restore England to Catholicism. Preparing to go to war to defend her empire, Elizabeth struggles to balance royal duties with an unexpected vulnerability in her love for Raleigh. But he remains forbidden for a queen who has sworn body and soul to her country. Unable and unwilling to pursue her love, Elizabeth encourages her favourite lady-in-waiting, Bess, to befriend Raleigh to keep him near. But this strategy forces Elizabeth to observe their growing intimacy. As she charts her course abroad, her trusted advisor, Sir Francis Walsingham, continues his masterful puppetry of Elizabeth’s court at home—and her campaign to solidify absolute power. Through an intricate spy network, Walsingham uncovers an assassination plot that could topple the throne. But as he unmasks traitors that may include Elizabeth’s own cousin Mary Stuart, he unknowingly sets England up for destruction.

Synopsis

Czech literature teacher Josef Tkaloun, who is past retirement age, realises one day that he no longer understands his pupils, and so he quits - dramatically. What he does not predict is that in doing this he will lose his sense of place in society. He finds himself isolated in his city flat with only his wife Eliska for company. Unsure how to deal with this new situation, Josef tries to find a way out. After a few vain attempts at finding a decent job he accepts a position at a refundable bottles counter in the local supermarket. In this seemingly inhospitable place, he solves what had been the root of his unhappiness. Surrounded by characterful people and at the centre of a city community, Josef finally finds his way back to his own wife.

Synopsis

A poignant split-time comedy drama, Forward charts the tragic end and the hopeful beginnings of a young man's relationships.

A young woman, Emma, loses control of a bike in a quiet London street. A young man, Sam, an American alone and isolated in London, mourns the recent death of his girlfriend. Scenes of Sam's loneliness and isolation are intercut with happy scenes of him and Emma together. But these supposed flash backs are actually flash forwards, and we are seeing Sam's future, not his past. The film ends with Emma's bicycle crash again, but this time revealing it to be the moment that she and Sam meet.

Synopsis

A Rembrandt painting is stolen whilst being authenticated by an Oxford University academic. It appears to have been taken by Alison Siegel's fictional alter ego. Can it have been?

This dual narrative thriller blurs the distinction between fiction and reality and is set both in the fusty academic world of Oxford University and a fictional neo-noirish London.

Synopsis

Regarded by his neighbours as a harmless misfit, eliciting idle kindness, benign tolerance and occasional abuse, Josie has spent all his adult life as the caretaker of a crumbling petrol station on the outskirts of a small town in the mid-west of Ireland. He is limited, lonely, yet relentlessly optimistic and, in his own peculiar way, happy. But then over the course of a summer, Josie’s world shifts. A teenager, David, comes to work with him. David likes him. They open up to each other and suddenly the lonely adult is drinking cans down at the railway tracks with the local kids. He is awakened to needs in himself that have never been met. And Carmel, from the local shop, who has always been kind to him, stirs feelings within him that he struggles to name. And then one thoughtless moment unravels the threads of faltering friendship. Events spiral. Josie’s life is changed, forever.

Synopsis

James Gregory, a typical white Afrikaner who regarded blacks as sub-human, grew up on a farm in the Transkei where he learned to speak Xhosa at an early age. This made him an ideal choice to become the warder in charge of Mandela and his comrades on Robben Island. Gregory could speak their language. He could spy on them without them knowing it. But the plan backfired. Through Mandela’s influence, Gregory’s allegiance gradually shifted from racism to support of Mandela’s quest for a democratically free South Africa.
 
Goodbye Bafana tracks the unlikely but profound relationship that developed between these two men. Through this unique friendship we witness Gregory’s growing awareness of man’s inhumanity to man, paralleled by the remarkable story of South Africa’s evolution from the fascism of Apartheid to a vibrant democracy in which Mandela played the pivotal role, becoming the most inspirational political figure of the modern world.

The story poses some extraordinary questions: Who is the prisoner? And who, in the end, sets who free? It’s about two men from totally opposite and conflicting backgrounds who bond in the face of impossible odds.

Synopsis

A newly wed couple arrive at a service station in the middle of the night. Zoran disappears to make a phone call but when he fails to return Dawn begins to wonder just how well she knows her new husband.

Synopsis

A Film Nerd spends his time watching the trashiest horror DVDs he can track down. But his world is turned inside-out when creatures from some of these films infest his idyllic home town of Exmouth. With all communications down, his friends picked off one by one, and the monsters about to break out of Exmouth’s perimeter walls; the Film Nerd will need to use all he has learned from terrible B-Movies.

Filmed in six countries, and featuring a pounding soundtrack by HypoStatic, Horror! Chews up and spits out everything from the Iraq war to 80s Computer games.

Synopsis

It has been said that the eye is the window on the soul. A snapshot of a terrifying moment, only partially revealed, i is raw uncompromising cinema.

Synopsis

This film follows 25-year-old William Francome’s investigation into the arrest of Mumia Abu Jamal, famed death-row prisoner and award-winning Black Panther journalist. Francome, born on the day of Mumia’s 1981 arrest, engages intellectuals, writers and musicians in an effort to expose the truth about justice in America for black activists in general and Mumia in particular.

The energetic, poetic and deeply moving interviews of Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Mos Def, Snoop Dogg and Steve Earle raise questions about the repercussions and damage of racial injustice not only to those targeted, but to the American culture itself. And most pointedly the film asks, what does it signify that Americans are still determined to put to death potential leaders and powerful political voices of the African-American culture.
 

Synopsis

Johnny (Vinnie Jones), trying to escape a violent past in Ireland, hides out in Brixton, London's toughest West Indian neighborhood; but when his former comrade and mentor Flynn escapes from Brixton prison determined to derail the Irish peace process, Johnny faces not only being dragged back into violence and away from his new love (Samantha Mumba), but also igniting a simmering feud with his 'Yardie' neighbour.
 
Questions of race, morality and loyalty play out against a great sound-track of reggae, rock and soul.