Projects matching: Just

Synopsis

A dark, character-driven thriller with a sense of humour, Dead Bolt Dead is set in the sharp-suited, brutal world of London's organised crime. The story, which takes place over the course of one night, charts what happens after one gang tries to take out its rivals - and fails.



The result is two separate hostage situations, which become increasingly claustrophobic and desperate as the night wears on. The tension is leavened with dark humour and a splash of country and western music.



The film is the debut feature from a precocious duo: 19-year-old producer Paul de Villiers, who also wrote the screenplay, and director James Rogan, who is just 18. "I think I'm the youngest film director in the country," says Rogan, who learned his craft through the Children's Film Unit, working on four features for television over four years.



Despite their youth, the pair managed to get French distributor Filmsdistribution on board to handle international sales when they took to film to Cannes in May. The cast includes British television regulars James Laurenson and Neil Stuke, who can also be seen in Rob Walker's Circus. Rogan and de Villiers also managed to persuade Neneh Cherry and GUM to contribute two original songs to Edmund Butt's moody soundtrack.



Rogan and de Villiers are not hanging around to see how their first theatrical feature goes down. They already have their next two films in pre-production, Presence Of Mind for Mosca Film and Club 18-30 for Turnwheel Films. The movies are scheduled to shoot back to back starting in October.

Synopsis

Somewhere in the countryside, an assassin slips into a country mansion with orders to kill its aged occupant. Somewhere in the city, a wounded thug blasts his way into a flat and takes a husband and wife hostage.


The old man in the mansion is a legendary crime Boss who has just made the fatal mistake of ordering the elimination of the rival gang. Betrayed by one of his own, his men have been rounded up in a bloody ambush. One of his thugs escapes and follows the Driver of the winning side back to his flat. Desperate to stay alive, the thug knows he will have to swap sides. His hostage, the driver, is his way in.


The Assassin has no intention of killing the Boss quickly; he's intrigued by this legend. He delays . . . to have a chat . . . to have a smoke . . . but little does he know what he's getting into. It is not the first time the Boss has stared down the barrel of a gun; at first he bides his time listening to this cowboy, just waiting for the right moment to start playing his own games.


Bleeding badly from a bullet in the shoulder, the Thug thinks he has found safety with the Driver and his Wife. However, the Driver is not all he seems and is in just as much danger as the Thug. Seeing events spiral out of control, the Wife decides to take matters into her own hands.


These stories are interwoven in a film about the necessity to keep talking in the face of death, even if you are the one holding the gun.

Synopsis

Sam Morrison challenges the view that old is senile in his debut film, Emma 18. Emma's quiet life of semi-retirement is disrupted by the surprise family visit of Sylvie, Derek, Tom & Otis who are just passing on their way home. Their flying visit is abruptly ended by an upsetting phone call, yet Emma seems strangely unperturbed.

Synopsis

From a short story by Sally Reeves. It is a difficult period for 12 year old Susy. Her father is very ill. The family house where she lives is filled with grief. Everybody is very busy trying to face the situation. Susy is left to herself. She never washes. She builds a magic room with her mother's furniture, and slowly she learns to cope with her grief.

Synopsis

Following is a wickedly clever story of how a young man's obsession with following people leads him into a dark underworld. Bill, the unlikely hero, is a marginalized but intriguing Everyman who follows strangers at random on the street. When Cobb a man Bill has been following, catches him in the act, Bill is drawn into Cobb's world of breaking into flats and prying into the personal lives of their victims. In Cobb, Bill finds a strange companionship, part mentor, part confessor and part evil twin. With an ingenious structure that involves flashforwards and doubling back, the film test and teases our knowledge and understanding just as it leads its hero into deeper and darker waters. This first feature heralds, in Christopher Nolan, a promising new talent to the indie film scene.

Synopsis

Richie and Eddie run Guesthouse Paradiso: possibly the worst hotel in the world. The drunken chef has eaten all the food and most of the guests have departed without paying. But things look up when the Nice family check in. Rummaging through the family's luggage, Richie finds exotic rubber underwear. Naturally he has to try them on. Interrupted, he hastily leaves his clothes in their bathroom and makes for the reception area.





There, beautiful actress Gina (having just jilted her fiancé Gino) wants to check in. Unsuitably dressed, Richie hides in the oven - but it ignites, fusing the underwear to his body. Eddie tries to remedy this with compressed air and a skewer - but the pants blow up, hurling Eddie onto the road. Still unconscious, a truck runs over his head, the jolt causing some fish to spill.





This, at least, eases the catering problem and Eddie incinerates the fishy windfall for dinner. Things take a turn for the worse when Mr Nice finds video evidence of Richie's panty-pilfering and threatens to sue. The guests also start to show signs of severe indigestion . . .

Synopsis

Human Traffic focuses on the lives and loves of five friends - JIP (played by John Simm), LULU (Lorraine Pilkington), KOOP (Shaun Parkes), NINA (Nicola Reynolds) and MOFF (Danny Dyer) --who suffer their weekday jobs to 'live it large' at the weekends.


Jip and Lulu are having relationship problems: Jip is insecure after failing to perform during several one night stands and Lulu's talent for picking the wrong bloke is getting her down. Nina and Koop have a great relationship - except he doesn't trust her, and Moff, their friendly dealer, is heading for a fast burn out.


Beneath the heady cocktail of music, clubs, drugs and bullshit, Human Traffic is also a film about friendships.

Synopsis

In Love



When your girlfriend does not love you accepting the fact can be hard, if not humiliating.



In Limbo



What's it like after you've died and gone to Limbo? Here's the answer.

Synopsis

A market researcher is surprised when his failed attempts to stop pedestrians catch the eyes of a beautiful window dresser. Charmed by her smile, he begins a comic performance to amuse her. But when a simple twist of fate pulls them apart for a moment, the fragility of their connection becomes all too clear.

Synopsis

It was in part thanks to the success of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels that It Was An Accident got off the shelf and into production. Screenwriter Ol Parker first got hold of the novel by Walthamstow-based former probation officer Jeremy Cameron in 1996, adapted it and teamed up with producer Paul Goodman. But film executives didn't get the stylised vocabulary and frenetic pacing - it was way too ahead of its time. But in the post-Lock, Stock world, Parker's script, now with director Metin Huseyin on board, found an enthusiastic backer in Lottery franchise studio Pathe Pictures.



Goodman is quick to point out the differences between his film and Guy Ritchie's. "They share similar language but this has heart and soul," he says. The film stars two of Britain's most promising young actors: Chiwetel Ejiofor (most recently wowing theatre audiences in Blue Orange at the National Theatre) and Max Beesley (reunited with Metin Huseyin after the BBC serial Tom Jones).



It was the richness of the language in Cameron's novel that appealed to Parker and Goodman. That Parker and Huseyin had both lived in Walthamstow gave them an insight into the area's particular brand of East End culture and helped turn what could have been just another London gangster flick into a film that, as Huseyin says, is "very funny about violence, but underpinned by a serious story about a guy you want to succeed trying to go straight".



The film is looking for spots on the international festival circuit. "We'd like to see it at Toronto because it's a multi-cultural town that we know will respond to the film and that will help with a US sale," says Goodman.

Synopsis

A tricky traffic warden, a cheeky copper and a hen party packed with chicks. It can only spell trouble.

Synopsis

South African-born Elaine Proctor's Kin was inspired by a community-based conservation scheme in the Koakoveld in Namibia. The story charts the emotional journey of Anna (Miranda Otto), who lives with her brother (Chris Chameleon) in the remote Namibian desert, working for wildlife conservation. When she falls for a black American traveller (Isaiah Washington), the conflict with her brother forces her to choose between the US and the home she loves.



"It's a film about learning to love," says Proctor, whose previous films, Friends and On The Wire, have won her fans on the international festival circuit.



Because filming in the Koakoveld was too impractical, Kin was shot south of Namibia's capital, Windhoek, on the edge of the desert, which provides a stunning background to the drama. Music was used to highlight the film's themes.



"We wanted the beginning and end to be quite epic, to accentuate the massive continent of Africa and the very powerful forces of nature that we see throughout the film," says Proctor. "It's a very emotional film. The romance goes all wrong and through a sequence of images, we realise that it's not going



to work."



The film premiered at the Taormina Film Festival in July and festival dates so far confirmed include Mill Valley in October.