Projects in categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Set in the frenetic urban environment of a modern British city, we follow Harry on a journey that isn't quite what it seems. Who is Harry, and what does he do all day?

Synopsis

A hilarious comedy . . . It's 1977 and our love-struck young hero drops his sequins for safety pins.. and deserts disco for Punk.





Vince Smith is eighteen, shy and maybe in love . . . with Joanna, who works in the same office. By day he's a lawyer's clerk, but by night he's an aspiring disco dancer . . .





Joanna Robinson is also eighteen, not shy and really likes Vince, especially teasing him. By day, she's also a lawyer's clerk, but by night, she's a punk . . .





Harold Smith is Vince's dad. He's retired, likes his pipe, his telly and sitting quietly in a corner being ignored by his glamorous wife Irene and the rest of the Smith family. Until one Christmas day he does an amazing magic trick . . . which catapults a reluctant Harold into the limelight of the North of England.





Whilst Harold's previously peaceful world is thrown upside down by his new-found magical powers, Vince has fallen head over heels for a spiky punk girl.





Father and son are in turmoil but together they discover it's not what you are, it's who you are that makes for true happiness.

Synopsis

With three of his novels already adapted into successful films, When Brendan Met Trudy marks Roddy Doyle's first original screenplay. Exhausted by the research that went into his latest novel, A Star Called Henry, Doyle decided to stick to what he knew well and write a script that would not require long hours in libraries or in-depth interviews with historians. The result is a light-hearted romantic drama that pays homage to some of the great classics of the silver screen.

Peter McDonald stars as Brendan, a teacher and film buff who escapes the boredom of his job by day-dreaming about the films he adores and singing in the local choir. He meets bohemian eccentric Trudy (Flora Montgomery), a nursery teacher, who introduces him to a new and invigorating way of life. When he discovers that she is really a thief, it adds an extra frisson to their whirlwind relationship but things go awry when Trudy meets Brendan's sister (Pauline McLynne). Trudy dumps Brendan, forcing him to move to get her back.

As with his previous films, Doyle set the action in Dublin but was keen that his director, Kieran J Walsh (with whom he had made the short Hell For Leather), and production team showed a different side of the town, one that would reflect the romanticism of the narrative.

"I dropped hints in the script on how it should be different from the Barrytown films, The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van. Dublin is a different place than when we did The Commitments. I decided to go for a more middle-class setting because I think that reflects Dublin more now."

Synopsis

When Brendan Met Trudy is a romantic comedy, set in present-day Dublin.


Night: Brendan Moore (32), a teacher and movie buff, tenor and loner, lies on a Dublin street, face-down in a puddle. Paraphrasing William Holden at the start of Sunset Boulevard, he invites us to go back with him to 'the day it all started'. Brendan meets Trudy Fortune (28), a Montessori teacher, in a pub. They agree to meet again, for a movie, but Trudy doesn't show up. Brendan goes looking, and finds her. They try again. The relationship brings Brendan to places he's never known - parties, the supermarket, friendship with a Nigerian refugee call Edgar - and the sex is glorious. For the first time in his adult live Brendan is having fun.


Then Brendan, fearing that Trudy is a serial castrator doing the rounds of Dublin, finds out that she is actually a burglar. He begins to enjoy her life of crime - and the sex is even better . . .

Synopsis

Two detectives find themselves on the frontline of the war against food crimes in this mock documentary.

Synopsis

Hugh, a young would-be-filmmaker, sets out to record the insignificant lives of his slacker friends with a camcorder. When one of them has an idea for a get rich quick scheme, an epic journey begins into the world of London's sex industry.





In Hugh's own words:





'It all began as a bit of fun, videotaping a couple of friends wandering aimlessly through their lives. When Tom (out of work actor Tom Foxton) had the idea for his male escort business, no one took him seriously except me. I knew it would be a disaster, but I also knew it might prove hilarious watching him fail'





'I think the presence of the camera spurred everyone on. Once I had persuaded Tom and his friends to get involved they soon became prostitutes for their few minutes of fame. Each in turn tried to take control of the agency and put themselves in the spotlight as the business spiralled out of control.'





'I borrowed a hidden camera and a radio mike to record intimate moments in restaurants, cabs and hotel bedrooms. We got shouted at, thrown out and even chased out of a brothel.'





'Poor Tom had no idea what he was getting us all into. I still can't believe what happened to him.'

Synopsis

The film tells the story, based on true events, of a female journalist who, with little concern for her own safety, took on the bloody force of the Dublin criminal underworld at great cost to herself. The story starts in 1995 with Sinead Hamilton (Joan Allen) already deep into an investigation of the Dublin Mafia.


Racing at 100 miles an hour through the Dublin hills, we find Sinead interviewing the notorious armed robber Martin Shaughnessy (Peter Postlethwaite) as his car screeches through the narrow country lanes. Shaughnessy insists that the corruption and degradation of Dublin is due, not to the likes of him - everyday armed robbers - but to the ruthless gangs running the ever growing and vastly profitable drug business. A business that corrupts all that it touches. These are the people that Sinead wants to expose; the drug barons gorging themselves on the city.


Soon after the interview is published Shaugnessy is assassinated. At the murder scene Sinead meets Mackey (Patrick Bergin), a local Police Detective. Mackey is the classic cynical cop - tough, angry and tired. Though he knows he's fighting a losing battle investigating these sorts of crimes, there's still just enough of the idealist left, to make him carry on. However, though Sinead and Mackey have the same purpose, their methods could not be more different.


So the scene is set. Heavily out-gunned in every respect, Sinead risks everything in her relentless pursuit of the underworld gangsters with only her wit, guile and sheer bravery to protect her. It's an investigation in which she discovers that truth has a cost, and that ultimately someone has to pay . . .

Synopsis

The most significant day in a normal life full of normal days.

Synopsis

Set in Ireland, Wild About Harry tells the story of chat show host Harry McKee (Brendan Gleeson), once a loving husband but now a drunken and unfaithful slob. His wife (Amanda Donohoe) is washing her hands of him, but on the eve of their divorce he is beaten up and falls into a week-long coma. When he wakes up he has forgotten 25 years of his life. Although he doesn't know it, Harry has been given the chance to get back his life, his family and his self-respect - if only he could remember how it all went wrong.



Wild About Harry re-unites writer Colin Bateman with producer Robert Cooper, following 1998's Divorcing Jack. Bateman came up with the idea for the film from a newspaper clipping about a man who had been involved in an accident and couldn't remember anything after the age of 18.



However, it took four years to hone the script. First-time feature director Declan Lowney was brought on board early in the project. "Declan's talent shone out, particularly in the area of humour, but also in its romantic sensibility," says Cooper.



Two years later and the film was finally financed and cast. Lowney had Brendan Gleeson in mind from the beginning for the role of Harry, although the part of Ruth proved harder to fill. "Once we met Amanda [Donohoe], we felt she had the qualities we were looking for," says producer Laurie Borg.



James Nesbitt plays the role of a crazed politician who is stalking Harry, while George Wendt of Cheers fame plays the part of Harry's TV producer.



Wild About Harry was filmed in Ireland over an eight-week shoot in autumn 1999. Its first screening was at Cannes in 2000.

Synopsis

This is a short film about love at first sight. It happens in the time when love transforms the world from physical to metaphysical; when people, things and places become different. Wildlife combines dramatic action with dance on a journey into dream territory, mixing Celtic mythology, Shanghai pop and modern mysticism.

Synopsis

A dark fairytale, reminiscent of Angela Carter, in which innocence is tinged with menace.

Synopsis

A stricken boat heads blindly towards the rocks while its crew dances the tango. A lighthouse keeper sings in the bath, oblivious of the impending disaster. The lighthouse lamp blows out. The keeper's wife hangs by a thread on the lighthouse wall. It takes a bicycling policeman, a fisherman's choir and a group of lady campanologists to resolve this high-tension musical comedy.