Projects matching: Just

Synopsis

Award-winning playwright Conor McPherson steps behind the camera for the first time with Saltwater, a tale of ordinary folk in extraordinary circumstances. In an out-of-season coastal town in Ireland, the local chippie is on the verge of going under. Ever since his mother's death, Frank (Peter McDonald) has been helping his father (Brian Cox) hold the fort. But dad is in hock to the local bookie and loan shark (Brendan Gleeson) so Frank takes matters into his own hands and robs the bookie. Needless to say, things don't quite go as planned.

Inspired by a dream McPherson had several years ago, the film began as a stage play called This Lime Tree Bower, which took the form of a series of monologues from the three main characters: Frank, his younger brother Joe, who feels his mother's absence the most, and Ray, a university tutor who is in love with the brothers' older sister.

McPherson then teamed up with producer Robert Walpole, who, along with his directing partner Paddy Breathnach, had turned his first screenplay, I Went Down, into an award-winning hit film. Saltwater went into production just as McPherson's acclaimed play The Weir was earning raves on Broadway in New York.

The film world-premiered in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival in February where audience reaction was favourable. It had its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July and will open in Ireland through Buena Vista in September.

Synopsis

Some Voices has come a long way from its theatrical origins. The journey started when Elinor Day, then at the BBC, saw Joe Penhall's acclaimed play about two brothers, one of whom is schizophrenic, at London's Royal Court theatre. "I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it," says Day, who commissioned Penhall to adapt it as a film script. "Penhall has such an original vision of the world."



Day took Some Voices with her when she moved to FilmFour, where Paul Webster liked it and agreed to commission re-writes. Penhall reworked the script thoroughly over four years, finding a visual equivalent for the "gothic, heightened naturalism" of the play's dialogue. The result, Penhall says, is "a film based loosely on the play, rather than an adaptation", with the slide back into illness of schizophrenic Ray (Daniel Craig) depicted in imaginative imagery rather than words.



FilmFour brought Simon Cellan Jones on board to direct. Although it is his feature debut, the director had an impressive track record in television, including the Bafta-winning Our Friends In The North.



The story is set in Shepherd's Bush, west London, where Cellan Jones lives and Penhall used to. The film was shot on location in six weeks, with a handheld camera capturing the locals' everyday life. "Every now and again you would get people looking into the camera and yelling, but we would just have to let it go," says Cellan Jones.



Some Voices premiered in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes this year.

Synopsis

Ruky has just been ordered to leave the UK by the British Home Office. Her world is suddenly torn apart.


Ebenezer her boyfriend could marry her and she would be granted a permanent visa, but he's a deeply religious man who would only marry for love.


Lucky Okoro has just inherited his late father's millions. His close friend and laywer Dele is anxious to help him consolidate his investments, all for just 10% of the total value.


Ruky soon meets Lucky and Dele, and the quest begins to find out what she really wants.

Synopsis

A mini cab appears and Alistair assumes that his disaster of an evening is over - only to discover that it is just beginning.

Synopsis

After a mysterious murder in the backstreets of London, a police officer must spring into action to bring the killer to justice.

Synopsis

After a wild night out, Lawrence decides to change his lifestyle. He visits old friends, but a destructive love triangle reveals other reasons for his visit.

Synopsis

Described as an English slacker movie and inspired by the film-making methods of Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Kevin Smith, The Devil's Feast explores issues such as religion, sex, politics and violence as it tells the story of Chloe Mason (Cait Sweeney), a conceptual artist whose latest work, The Devil's Feast, has split the art world in two. Flashbacks reveal what inspired Chloe to produce such a controversial exhibition, introducing the friends and acquaintances that influenced her. The result is part psychological drama, part black comedy that its producers say aims to keep the viewer guessing.

Shot on digital video, the no-budget film follows the format of Mischief Pictures' previous 50min film, 4 Play, which was made two years ago using a non-professional cast, an improvised script and hand-held camera in an attempt to capture the real life rather than the dreaming spires cliche of the town of Oxford. "We shot over about five months with equipment given to us by two production companies," says producer Richard Duriez, who, like director Sharon Woodward, has a background in documentaries."It was incredibly difficult but we wanted to develop our skills at feature film-making. We've met so many film-makers who have got backing to make their first feature and cocked it up so we decided to make sure we knew how before looking for financing."

The Devil's Feast premiered at the Oxford Phoenix Picture House in November 1999 and has just screened at the Portobello Film Festival in August.

Synopsis

Reuniting the Merchant-Prawer-Jhabvala-Ivory team with Henry James following The Europeans in 1979 and The Bostonians in 1984, The Golden Bowl is the story of two impoverished lovers (Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam) who decide to wed for money -- she to an American billionaire (Nick Nolte), he to the billionaire's daughter (Kate Beckinsale). Concealing their relationship from both spouses, the couple carry on their clandestine relationship until it ends in tragedy partly due to her cruel manipulations. The golden bowl of the title, which plays a key role in the lovers' secrets and lies, is a beautifully crafted object with a hairline crack almost invisible to the eye.



Director James Ivory had been mulling the idea of returning to James when he began to read The Golden Bowl, the author's most difficult but also most accomplished novel. He gave up halfway through. He and screenwriter Ruth Prawer-Jhabvala turned instead to The Portrait Of A Lady and The Wings Of A Dove but when they found they had been pipped to the post by Jane Campion and Iain Softley respectively, they went back to The Golden Bowl. With backing from Miramax Films and TF1 International, the film began shooting over the summer of last year, using several spectacular locations including Syon House just outside London.



With their trademark elegance, subtlety and meticulous attention to period detail, the Merchant Ivory team won over most critics at the Cannes Film Festival where the film premiered. It will open in the US in November through Miramax Films, which will also release the film in the UK.

Synopsis

The Killing Zone is the taut, suspenseful - and sometimes darkly comic - story of Matthew Palmer; an underworld assassin. A professional killer, who floats in and out of each slaying, Palmer does each job quickly, efficiently. He is observer and executioner only. He has just two jobs to complete before he retires. After that - escape with his girlfriend Kerry, reward . . . rest.





Unfortunately for Palmer, both jobs dredge up past personal follies, exposing his previously traitorous acts against his former employers, blurring his personal and professional commitments, putting him on the run, pitting him against victim and fellow assassin alike, driving all involved with him toward a bloody climax.

Synopsis

Stephen Norrington, best known for splashy special effects action movies such as Blade, returns to home soil with The Last Minute, a black comedy about the lure of fame and the price of failure, produced by his regular collaborator Matthew Justice.



Max Beesley, the boyish charmer who became a teen heartthrob in the recent BBC adaptation of Tom Jones, takes the lead as Billy Byrne, a supercool, supertalented young artist who is the toast of the town. But, just as he begins to get used to the heady cocktail of success, his star crash-lands back on earth and he finds himself caught up in a dangerous world of crime and murder.



The film was, says Justice, "a fantastic opportunity to do a movie that does not rely on all the genre trickery of our previous pictures, although naturally, old habits die hard!"



Thanks to Palm Pictures, Justice and Norrington were allowed to make the film exactly as they had always planned, with "a small, young, talented and hungry crew working with a great cast in and around London," explains Justice. Shot last summer in East London and at Three Mills Studios, the film features a supporting cast of new and old faces alongside Beesley, including Jason Isaacs as a sledgehammer-wielding bootboy with a taste for crooning, veteran baddie Udo Kier and newly crowned king of the wideboys, Frank Harper.

Synopsis

The Loss of Sexual Innocence directed by Mike Figgis is a beautiful, richly textured film of interconnected short stories concerning the events of one man's life and paralleling them with the classic story of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.





Told in a non-linear structure, The Loss of Sexual Innocence is the story of Nic, told through the crucial, sometimes humorous an often heart-breaking episodes of his life. As the film weaves it's vivid, hypnotic narrative, we catch glimpses of what makes Nic the man that he is, tracing incidents that happen to him as a five year old boy, as a twelve year old adolescent, as a 16 year old teenager, and as a fully grown man.





Cross-cut with the tale of Nic is the classic parable of Adam and Eve, which serves as an allegory to the events of Nic's life and, the two tales intertwined, ultimately serves as a powerful summation of the loss of innocence of not just Nic, but of the humanity of our species.





Bold, visually striking images, combined with a sonorous musical soundtrack composed and recorded by Mr Figgis make for a deeply moving, visually exhilarating piece of filmmaking that grows increasingly powerful with each viewing.

Synopsis

The last day of creation. A stranger arrives in London. No one knows who he is or where he has come from. By the time he leaves, the entire universe will have been erased.





The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz is a black comedy about the Apocalypse.





A manhole opens just outside the M25, London's orbital motorway. A man crawls out. He wears clothes from another century, his face is pale and strange. His name is Tomas Katz.





By the motorway, he hails a taxi. After a brief discussion with the taxi driver, something strange happens . . . Tomas Katz is now dressed as the Taxi Driver and is driving the cab. The Taxi Driver is dressed as Tomas Katz, and is standing on the hard shoulder.





Tomas Katz, dressed as the taxi driver, heads into the centre of London.





Outside the Ministry of Fisheries, the Tomas Katz-Taxi Driver picks up the Minister and takes him to a press conference. By the time they arrive at their destination, the Minister has transformed into the Taxi Driver, and Tomas Katz has become the Minister.





As the Minister, he enters the press conference and declares war on the Middle East.