Project Detail

Brakes

Synopsis

"If you knew where it would end, would you ever begin?"
A raw, dark comedy about endings and beginnings. A failed relationship is rarely predicted but always reviewed, and the film adopts this reverse narrative.
Split into two halves, the film follows the tumultuous stories of nine couples. It plunges straight into the brutal and absurd endings of their relationships, and travels back in time to the moment when the spark of love between them first emerged. Using London as their match maker, each of their stories is unique, yet familiar to us all.
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2016 - World premiere

Details

Year
2016
Type of project
Features
Running time
84 mins
Format
DCP
Director
Mercedes Grower 1st Feature
Producer
Mercedes Grower, Kurban Kassam
Executive Producer
Judy Counihan
Editor
Yasmine Almosawi, Andy Hage
Screenwriter
Mercedes Grower
Director of Photography
Denzil Armour Brown, Gabi Norland
Production Designer
Emma Tornero
Sound
Maciej Mariusz Miskiewicz, Alex Thomson, Guy Fixen
Composer
Quickspace, Sybil
Principal cast
Julian Barratt, Steve Oram, Paul McGann, Kerry Fox, Julia Davis, Noel Fielding, Peter Wight, Roland Gift, Seb Cardinal, Mercedes Grower, Kate Hardie

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Brakes Film Production

Mercedes Grower

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Julie Root as Rita Last Strike

Director: Helen Lyons-Curran

Year: 2026

A woman's New Year's Eve plans are thrown off course in a taut and tense thriller.

A woman with dark brown hair holds a pair of scissors and looks frightened in a big house. The Daughters (Las hijas)

Director: Daniel Romero

Year: 2026

When Basque woman, Ane (20), is kidnapped by a male taxi driver, she wakes up in a mysterious house in the countryside and discovers that the three other women being held captive act as the kidnapper’s ‘daughters’, with the eldest ‘daughter’ released back into society each time a new daughter is brought into the house. Terrified, Ane must convince the other ‘daughters’ to escape, but they have other plans.

An older woman and a young teenager sit opposite eachother in a nail salon. Sharks Never Sleep

Director: Kieran Stringfellow

Year: 2026

Whilst doing work experience at her aunt’s nail salon, 16-year-old Saskia struggles to find her place among the women around her. But as she begins to settle in, an unexpected discovery forces her to see her aunt in a new light.