Projects matching: ISO

Synopsis

Based on Alan Bennett's hit National Theatre comedy-drama. An unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in 1980s Yorkshire are in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at Oxford or Cambridge. A maverick English teacher, a facts-orientated history teacher and a young and shrewd supply teacher are trying to help them, albeit with completely different teaching methods. The school is run by a slightly crazed headmaster obsessed with results and getting his school up the league tables. Given all this, can the boys achieve their Oxbridge goal and what can they learn about life, love, history, and film-endings along the way?

Synopsis

The Jigsaw of Life is an emotional thriller, exploring love, friendship, betrayal, anger, vengeance and enlightenment. The film is set over the course of Duncan's life. His childhood is shown from the arrival of his stepfather, Michael. Duncan's mother, Faye, inadvertently allows them to get trapped in a suffocating atmosphere that slowly poisons them. We see how the young Duncan deals with the situation at home and how it changes him and shapes him for later life. Duncan then moves away to university, where he experiences happiness for the first time, and falls in love with Clara. A close betrayal by his so-called friend, Keith, then starts a chain reaction that leads to him quitting university and losing all direction. Duncan has made a great friend at university, Lee, who sticks with him through thick and thin, as Duncan tries to find some understanding and reasoning in the world. He then meets Pete, who suggests the concept of the jigsaw of life, and this helps Duncan move on and look to the future. Duncan eventually comes face to face with Keith again, and their ultimate confrontation sparks the final climactic scenes.

Synopsis

The setting is Lancashire in 1932. Albert Pierrepoint, in his early 30s, a local delivery truck driver, arrives home one day to a letter sent to him ‘On Her Majesty's Service'. He has been accepted for training at Pentonville Prison, to honour the Pierrepoint name and become a British executioner, following in the footsteps of both his father and uncle. Despite his proud excitement, his mother Mary disapproves and tells him exactly what she told his father; she never wants to hear, see, nor speak of it.

The opportunity is a dream come true for Albert and he makes the trip to London. The journey marks the beginning of the incredible career of the world's most famous executioner, who will one day officiate at the hangings of some of Britain's most notorious murderers including John George Haigh, the acid bath murderer, and Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain.

Synopsis

Rome, 476 AD. The Roman Empire is under threat. A mighty force for almost 500 years, at its height Rome’s power spread from Mesopotamia in the east to the Iberian peninsula in the west, from the Rhine and Danube in the north to Egypt in the south. This story follows the events surrounding the historical capture of Romulus Augustus and his imprisonment on the island of Capri.

Synopsis

The Lives of the Saints is a dark and bizarre morality tale.

The story unfolds in the cafés, clubs and shops of Green Lanes, where Mr Karva is the boss: a ridiculous yet dangerous man. Othello, his stepson, is the young pretender, palling around with his girlfriend Tina and his weak-willed lackey Emilio. Life revolves around socialising, gambling and trying to scrape a modest living.

But that lifestyle is about to be thrown into disarray by an otherworldly, sickly-looking 10-year- old child. Mr Karva's errand boy, Roadrunner, stumbles across the child in the park and offloads the bizarre find into Othello's basement.

Thus begins an exhilaratingly strange series of events. It seems that the child is able to grant others their innermost desires... Soon Othello's dreams of limitless wealth are becoming reality. And true to form, his tyrannical stepfather wants to muscle in on the action.

It's Paradise on the streets of north London, but family ties and relationships are becoming increasingly strained and as Mr Karva himself says, 'every Paradise got its serpent'. He persuades the unstable Emilio to take the matter into his own hands, and the tale plummets towards its tragic conclusion.

The Lives of the Saints is a truly original, modern-day fable, which warns that what we wish for is not always what we need.

Synopsis

A mysterious call, a photograph of a man and a private detective compelled by the one case that has finally got to him. One stark but brilliant day in London, Austin Peterson takes a job from an anonymous client, a demand he knows he should refuse. He uses the feelings of the woman who loves him to get information. But this only raises more questions than it answers, leading Peterson deeper into the maze. He discovers that the man in the photograph committed suicide four years before, and haunted by the unanswered questions, he subjects the dead man's family and friends to his investigation.

Synopsis

The Starers have a comic fight over hair.

Synopsis

Set in a 19th-century European village, this stop-motion, animated feature follows the story of Victor, a young man who is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious Corpse Bride, while his real bride, Victoria, waits bereft in the land of the living. Though life in the Land of the Dead proves to be a lot more colourful than his strict Victorian upbringing, Victor learns that there is nothing in this world, or the next, that can keep him away from his one true love. It’s a tale of optimism, romance and a very lively afterlife, told in classic Tim Burton style.

Synopsis

South London brothers Vic and Baz are challenged to a car race around the docks one night. They 'borrow' a car from the local garage, but only succeed in crashing it into the Thames. To pay for the car, garage owner Frankie sends them to work nights at his cleaning company in the city.
Vic soon realises that the paper they shred every night is potentially worth a fortune, and their trading days begin.

Vic and his brother are in their element with cars, girls and champagne lifestyles, but their high profile draws the attention of the 'establishment'. Who will be the winner when all the dealing's done?
 

Synopsis

This debut feature film, written, choreographed and directed by its leading man, the black dancer Rodreguez King-Dorset, shows a creative dance artist in a desperate search for identity in a white-dominated country.
The film depicts the lives of two boys in England in the 1980s, one a newly arrived African, the other an Afro-Caribbean, and highlights the ethnic tensions between their respective groups. The young black Briton, Lewis, has to face scorn and misunderstanding from his father when he tries to become a professional dancer. Lewis has a close friendship with the African, Ramsey, and a rewarding relationship with an Afro-Caribbean girlfriend, Maudi. His African friend is imprisoned for a killing he was forced into in sheer self-defence, and this only adds to Lewis’s confusion. He sets out to create a solo dance, which embodies some of his emotions.
Finally he shows himself being questioned by an external examiner in the final stages of his thesis for a DPhil. He makes a spirited defence of his views to a sceptical examiner and the film shows in flashbacks some of what is going on in his head as he formally protests to his examiner.

Synopsis

Lanny Morris and Vince Collins are the country's hottest entertainment duo. They're knee deep in all the wealth and power that comes with such fame. That is, until a beautiful girl turns up naked and dead in the pair's hotel suite after a night of wild partying. Journalist Karen O'Connor's quest to uncover the facts leads her into an emotional and sexual relationship that proves impossible to break, even when the horrible truth of past actions is revealed.

Synopsis

Wonder is a humorous rendition of Wonder Woman, which syncs together the transformative moments of the acuminating drama as our be- speckled assistant turns to super-heroine. The narrative is emptied of significance while the surface imagery turns into a gloss of texture and action. The layers intermingle as the music and sound drive each episode forward, emphasising the crush of cliché and drama.