Projects matching: Just

Synopsis

Love - on the razor's edge of addiction.

Carl Dyson is a successful genetic scientist who is about to destroy his comfortable suburban life. Liz is no average 20-year-old girl. Manacled to a chair in the basement of a decaying country estate, her dark eyes pierce the strands of raven hair falling across her pale beautiful face. A dog-muzzle pulls her grey lips back form her gleaming white teeth. She is hungry. Upstairs, three 40-year-old excuses for humanity play screaming rock music and drink her blood.

Carl rescues her, takes her into his home and forges a set of documents that give her a new identity as his sister. What else can he to do? He did after all create her - 20 years ago, in his lab at the RICA Institute.

The objective of the project had been to create a human being with blood that would conquer every known disease including cancer. Carl had a vision that within a few generations there would be enough people with this elixir blood, born naturally, to keep the world healthy.

He discovered however, that when ingested by any other person, Lix's blood did nothing more than act as an extremely powerful narcotic.

Five years after her birth, Lix was abducted and locked in a basement to be used as a living narcotics factory. She was held there for the next 15 years until Carl rescued her.

And now Lix, the girl with narcotic blood, is living in Carl's home. Carl is captivated by her. Sexual electricity arks between them like slow summer lighting. He wants to taste her blood. The temptation grows with each passing day. Just once. Just to know.

Synopsis

Maya, a young Mexican, crosses the border to join her tough elder sister Rosa who works as a cleaner in a down town block, home to some of LA's most powerful corporate clients.

The two sisters have a deep but fiery relationship which is further stretched by Sam, a talented and anarchistic American activist, who is part of a dynamic campaign opposed to older methods of trade union organising. They have a simple motto, 'No Justice, No Peace' and embark on a peaceful but highly imaginative guerrilla campaign for trade union recognition against cleaning companies and powerful corporate owners of the tower blocks.

Ken Loach's first US-set film exposes a side of Los Angeles that to date has been swept under the corporate carpet.

Written by Paul Laverty, Bread And Roses is set around the early 1990s Justice for Janitors strike which saw an army of exploited cleaners - the invisible Latino immigrants - take to the streets to protest for basic workers' rights. The film stars Pilar Padilla and Elpidia Carrillo as the two sisters involved in the struggle and Adrien Brody as a union activist who leads the campaign against their employers.

For Loach, the appeal was that "the film was set in another world that existed side by side with the movie world. It's about organising immigrant workers, (who are) very vulnerable and easily exploited. Having worked on a film in Nicaragua (Carla's Song), this seemed another element in the same wider story, the relationship between the US and countries that are essentially its colonies, economically and culturally."

The film was shot according to Loach's pared-down aesthetics, with a high shooting ratio that allowed the director to let the dialogue run on until he had what he needed. Making the film in the US with a significant number of extras meant the budget, at $5.5m, was higher than usual. It also meant Loach had to occasionally break the rules "which is always quite entertaining", he says.

Synopsis

'The moon inspires women to do terrible things'. It is night time. A full moon is out. Ray is a sympathetic alcoholic. He is sitting under a tree, telling whoever is listening, about the women in his life. Women are a mystery to him. He cannot understand his wife, his bald sister, his visionary mother or his daughter.

Synopsis

Piano maestro Stromberg doesn't just teach piano - he teaches the art of sitting on the piano stool, the correct way to lift the lid, but can he teach the keyboard?

Synopsis

In the heart of Irish London, beer is thicker than water.

In Kilburn's square mile there are 63 Irish pubs. This comedy is the story of just one.

Mickey, the pub's young barman, is sure that his job is preventing him from 'getting on' in life. So he's returning to Ireland to take up a job with his brother. This, his last week should be the most enjoyable.

Fat chance. The landlord is in hospital, and Mickey is left in charge. The regulars appear on cue, taking the same seats in front of the same drinks at the same time as every other day. If only everything else about them were as predictable.

With their eccentricities, ravings and antics, Mickey's own girl trouble, and the bizarre characters who pass through the pub, it's now shaping up to be the worst week of his life.

But as his last day approaches and the madness reaches its climax, Mickey comes to understand the real people behind the regulars and more importantly, that for all of them the pub represents a home from home - a haven where all their problems can be forgotten. He'd be crazy not to stay.

Lock in. Drink up. Pass out.

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.