Projects

Synopsis

Senses is a feature-length portmanteau film divided into five parts. Each part is named after its story's protagonist, is written and directed by a different person, and set in a different part of the world.   The stories are not exactly related to one another except through their thematic link to one of the five senses. Each story is very different in terms of narrative, tone, and adopted approach to its theme, crossing genre boundaries to give Senses a broad and rich appeal.   Part One: Anna Anna, a cellist in her 20's, arrives at a remote church by the coast to stay with Helen, an old friend of the family who now lives with reclusive retired music conductor, Rashid. While there, Anna learns that Rashid is afflicted by a mysterious malady which forces him to hear human suffering as it occurs throughout the world. A malady with which she herself will come to be afflicted.   Part Two: Jerry Jerry Sitzer is a native New Yorker who has a pre-occupation with underwear. Musing over his life, Jerry sorts through his neuroses, memories, and guilt on a quest to find true love after yet another failed relationship.   Part Three: Arthur Arthur Stone is a freelance paparazzo, addled by a worsening amphetemine addiction and consumed by bitterness and disillusion. When he snaps a shot of what he thinks may be the clue to a murder and threatening notes begin to appear, his life and mind begin to derail, forcing him ultimately to confront his own values and double-standards, as well as the supposed infallibility of the recorded image.   Part Four: Zoe When Zoe decided to go visit her friend and ex-lover Claude in Paris, she discovers that he now lives as a transvestite in a commune dedicated to the pleasures of food and flesh. At first drawn to the sense of free abandon inside the House, as the night wears on, she realises that there is still hope of finding that unique spice which could make sense of her life.   Part Five: Anais Their marriage on the verge of collapse, Anais and Moncho journey to San Pedro on the edge of the Attacama Desert to meet a shaman named Abuelo Peto. He introduces them to the San Pedro cactus, a hallucinogenic plant that he says will help them understand their problems and each other better. Together they begin a journey that they hope will save their relationship, but with almost tragic consequences.

Synopsis

Potato men Dave and Larry are doing their rounds to the local chippies and we go along for the ride in this hilarious, outrageous, raunchy and often jaw-dropping comedy.

Synopsis

Sammy Gilanders is a quiet and sensitive seven-year-old boy, whose simple and uncomplicated life was forever altered when his mother gave birth to baby Susie. On the day of Susie's christening the whole villiage turns out to wish her well and get drunk at the reception. Running away before the service Sammy finds solace in the shade of a large lonely tree behind the church. The tranquility of his shaded haven has a profound effect on Sammy which in a bizarre turn helps Sammy to readjust to the new role of older brother.

Synopsis

Shadows is a short experimental film about the fact that no matter where we come from or who we are or what language we speak, we are the same colour ie black. The languages spoken in the film are Chinese, Russian, Indian, African and English. The film was created by filming the shadows of people talking against a wall.

Synopsis

Shaun of the Dead is an everyday tale of life, love and the living dead focussing on a group of friends who encounter a literal night from hell at their local pub resulting in a zombie holocaust.

Synopsis

'Obey', the word flickers onto the monitor screen. The small shaved monkey works hard, pulls the lever. He does what he's told to do - and he receives his reward. An allegory of man's thankless task of working for nothing but shallow consumer products.

Synopsis

Dundee is the bingo capital of Britain. With the highest number of gambling establishments per capita of anywhere outside of Las Vegas, it's residents truly are bingoing mad. This documentary looks at the strong tradition of bingo playing in Dundee as seen through the eyes of a small section of bingo addicts - set against the city's industrial past. In this city bingo is not just a game, it's a lifestyle.

Synopsis

A French neurologist, arrives at the run-down Shimkent Hotel, Kazakhstan, where he encounters a solitary young man, suffering from amnesia and obviously deep in shock after some catastrophe.   As they begin treatment, the patient slowly recounts his story - a tale involving industrial intrigue, cultural incomprehension, a get-rich-quick scheme which goes horribly wrong, and a desperate flight for survival across the Pakastini border.    Shot on analogue video, with superb desolate landscapes and settings. Utterly gripping and very, very strange indeed.

Synopsis

Cupid is a confessed alcoholic who had his heart broken forty years ago and is destroying romantic love and poisoning relationships.   But a mix up over his own poison gives him another chance. Have his own bitter experiences ruined his belief or will he be able to get love back on track in time to save Zoe and Martin?

Synopsis

In the ex-colliery villages of East Durham, there is an abyss: falling down it is an easy thing. In a dangerous landscape, Barry, 40-year-old ex-youth worker, occasional labourer, wryly comic storyteller and single father, watches out for his 12-year-old son Callum. His eye is drawn to Emma, a 22-year-old with two children, Jade, 7 and Shannon, 4.  Barry likes to help, likes kids and likes Emma. But Emma has her own worries.   The film follows her personal journey as she single-mindedly tries to get her partner Darren off heroin: as she acquires the cocktail of drugs that will see him through his 'rattle' and takes him to 'The Breakies', a bleakly isolated collection of fishing huts, out beyond the steelworks, at the mouth of the Tees. And it follows Barry, Jade, Shannon and Callum in tow, picking up the pieces in a community that has moved further and further away from the economic mainstream. The abyss yawns and Barry negotiates the difficult terrain opening up from his own serious misjudgements. Watched by the disapproving Callum, his attempts to help Emma draw him ever closer to the edge.

Synopsis

Set in the Winter of 2002, at the height of British media hysteria over the massive influx of asylum seekers into the country. Sitting Ducks is a comedy about a slightly naive group of Romany Gypsies who come to London to escape the discrimination they suffered in former Yugoslavia.   Through a twist of fate they find themselves in the smart house of a television executive and his ambitious wife. Events spiral out of control when an ambitious Tory politician gets involved.

Synopsis

Skagerrak is the story of being struck by happiness when you least expect it.  In their late twenties and tired of partying their way around the world, Danish Marie and Irish Sophie come ashore in Northern Scotland. After another drunken night they are soon parted from their accumulated cash.  Out of money and out of luck, ambitious Sophie pressures Marie into accepting a lucrative job as a surrogate mother.   Months later, Marie finds herself alone, life having taken a dramatic turn. Heavily pregnant, and waiting to terminate her pregnancy, she's on the run from the future parents, searching for Sophie's old flame, Ken. Marie ends up hiding with three other strange men in a seedy Glasgow garage. But then happiness strikes again.