Hard Shoulder

Director: Nicholas David Lean

Year: 2012

Carl Foster, a work obsessed man, reluctantly agrees to a weekend away with his disgruntled wife and disruptive children - it’s as much as he can do to muster any kind of enthusiasm for the few days he must endure in their company. Their constant bickering finally takes its toll on Carl when they are passed, on a deserted country road, by a convoy of ‘carnival types’, who, by mischief or accident, cause Carl to swerve off the road. With rage descending Carl gets into heated exchange with the travellers. Taking an enforced stop hours later, in a small layby, the family are again affronted as their stationary vehicle is rammed by an unseen assailant in a large truck. Dazed by the impact they wake, bound and gagged, within the dreary confines of an abandoned roadside diner, with, seemingly, the same carnival types now their abductors and antagonists. As the gang demeans, insults, and tortures each of their captives in turn, it falls to Carl to free his family from their predicament. But not everything is as it seems, their environment not as tortuous as they imagined, and Carl not all that he would have us believe.

Director: Riad Arfin

Year: 2027

A Bangladeshi taxi driver in Glasgow spends one long night driving others to the airport while struggling to bring his own family to safety.

Director: Sonia Guggenheim

Year: 2026

Loyal butler Jonathan is sent to rescue the failing Blueberry Inn, unaware his blinkered Lord plots to leave it to him and three chaotic staff as a social experiment. When the Lord dies suddenly, Jonathan discovers he's a co-owner of the Inn and has just one month to save it. Battling sabotage from furious heirs, the mismatched team (and a pig!) rally their communities, securing the Inn's future against all odds.