Projects in genres: Black

Synopsis

Cherps is a fresh and charming romantic comedy that draws equally on traditions of British story telling and New York independent filmmaking. Reggie is a thirtysomething second-generation black British west London geezer. He likes to live on the fly; ducking and diving, and avoiding work whenever possible. He also likes to cherps women. In black British street slang, 'to cherps' is to chat up or flirt with women. Simple. But Reggie's wild days are numbered when his longtime baby-mother, Sandra, puts the clamps on him; she wants him to settle down and stop running with his home boys. This sends Reggie into a tail spin. Settle down?! Make a commitment?! These are big concepts that need a lot of thought. And so over the next seven days our hero goes on an existential journey into the meaning of commitment, the meaning of happiness the meaning of life, no less.

Synopsis

A year in the troubled life of the Music School of Luanda, the capital of Angola, and one of the world's poorest and most dangerous places. Following four central characters, this film reveals not only their struggle with their country's war-ravaged past, but also their musical passion and ambition.

Synopsis

Amy is sick with a disease that keeps her in hospital isolation. While on his daily cigarette break, a janitor spots her. The two end up forming a tenuous friendship, one which occurs from different sides of the glass and only ever last as long as it takes for Ben's cigarette to burn down.

Synopsis

Kimmie is a weird kind of road movie that follows the journey of Liberian childs rights activist, Kimmie Weeks as he returns home from exile for the first time in 6 years. It is a very personal journey set against the backdrop of two countries pulling themselves out of war, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Kimmie was just 10 when war broke out in Liberia. He and his mother spent 6 months in a camp without food or medicines where hundreds died and Kimmie was almost one of them. It was this experience that led him to commit his life to fighting for children and, only a child himself, he spent the next 7 years campaigning. When he was 17 he wrote a paper exposing the government's use of children as soldiers; his life was threatened and he fled the country. He was given asylum in the USA where he had been for 6 years when Charles Taylor was forced into exile and Kimmie could return home. This was to be a trip looking at the issues surrounding war affected children but it was much more than that. A very likeable 23 year old takes on chaos, hope, old friends, presidents and his own demons to find peace- always with humour.

Synopsis

Artist and barber Faisal Abdu'Allah sets up his very own drop-in barbershop. Snipping and shaving while spinning yarns, Faisal discusses art, life and haircutting with customers.

Synopsis

A short film about the 3 stages of love - the 'beginning', the 'honeymoon period' and the 'break-up'. Exploring these stages with five different characters whose stories, against their better knowledge, are linked. Love Is Like is a romantic thriller that intertwines narrative and explores love from start to finish.

Synopsis

Its an unrequited love story set in the world of black filmmakers. Jason Street, a writer and director has one weekend to solve his love life in order to put the end on his latest script which his friends want him to shoot and another mate wants to sell to the russian mob but Jason loves his best friend whom is too afraid to love him back and despite that, he is blinded to the fact that his actress may be his one true love.

Synopsis

A 'Bollywood' legend comes to London to tread the boards in Shakespeare, but first he must find a leading lady to match his charm and sexual dynamism. He brings with him his (not so) faithful sidekick Ramyou Balti and his spiritual advisor the 'honourable guru Baboo' to help him with the auditions. However Popo Gigi's eloquence and magnetism is such that his rendition of Shakespeare makes the actresses melt in paroxysms of sexual ecstasy, forgetting to act, instead divesting themselves of their clothes. Ramyou's zeal to take over Popo's position leads to a madcap chase through London culminating in a yoga showdown for the title.

Synopsis

The Idea is a comical satire of modern society and our inability to listen. It is also a study of contemporary society's insensitivity towards the expression of new ideas and not being willing to give them the appropriate space to grow and form. Rather than asking the right questions, crowding them out with trivial concerns and noisy vacuous statements. Although, in this instance, we drew from archetypal figures of a particular group of people, the message is universal and equally applies to all groups and denominations.

Synopsis

2015, the last known oil fields have been vanquished by corporation run governments throwing the world into disarray. Out of this apocalyptic nightmare the corporations embark on a course of action to cull the human race and initialise a depopulation programme.   But the scientists tasked with this heinous act revolt, thus creating a drug that will keep the human race alive. But with no time to test the drug, humans are left in a state far worse than death. Reduced to a primitive ape-like state, their only instinct is to kill. For they are no longer human, but 'Biosyns'. Cast adrift to survive alone in the wilderness, Max has learnt to become a hunter/gatherer, living off the land, but under constant threat from the Biosyns. He has forged a life without human contact, a young man living from moment to moment. Soon he learns that the Biosyns are learning to communicate, and are banding together to become the new dominant race, and then Max will have to face a greater number than ever before. So when he encounters a 'Tracker' (genetically enhanced POWs from the oil wars) his first instinct is to kill him. Surviving the attack, the Tracker reassesses his original mission - track down and kill Max - to take him south to safety - as the Corporation believe Max’s blood may contain the antidote to the Biosyn Holocaust. And now, if Mankind is to survive, then Max must undertake an odyssey fraught with rampaging Biosyns and deadly Trackers.

Synopsis

This story takes placed somewhere between the present and the future. Loosely set within the science fiction genre we enter a time when the government have declared societies urban youth as out of control and in need of readjustment. Sighting the medias glamorisation and endorsement of images of cultural resistance, namely hip-hops 'ghetto fabulous' aesthetic as a root cause of the problem, a new antisocial law has been decreed. It has been declared that any unruly youth must be rounded up and literally reprogrammed in order for them to fit more harmoniously into current society. The idea is to first remove from their mind images associated with the 'ghetto fabulous' culture and then implant a microchip containing a standardised alternative that allows them to quietly reintegrate.

Synopsis

Keith has recently set up home with Claire in a suburban part of London leaving behind him a three year relationship with Julia and the inner city area he grew up in. His action angers his sister and surprises his brother-in-law. Both attempt to change his mind but to no avail. He meets John on a routine call-out job. A mutual interest in football leads to John's offer of a free hotel room for Keith and his friend when they travel to Stockholm for an international football friendly taking place at the weekend. On route to the airport, realising he has left his passport, Keith returns home to find Claire in bed with Ryan, his brother-in-law. Keith travels solo to Stockholm after his friend Dave, who has the match tickets, pulls out at the last moment. Angry, hurt and alone in a foreign city, Keith goes to the only place he knows; the hotel room offered by John. There he meets Anna, John's previous girlfriend, and ends up staying at her apartment. Over a period of several days, their complicated lives interweave as each one tries to manoeuvre the emotions of an unrequited love.