Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

London 1961. Alex, a jazz musician, and Faith, a singer, share an uneasy life together. The relationship 'on the rocks' Faith is willing to try to win back Alex by any means. Alas her attempts at making Alex jealous by leaving the club with a stranger backfire. Assuming that Faith has found a new beau Alex leaves their flat not knowing that Faith has been waiting for him.

Synopsis

Maya, a young Mexican, crosses the border to join her tough elder sister Rosa who works as a cleaner in a down town block, home to some of LA's most powerful corporate clients.

The two sisters have a deep but fiery relationship which is further stretched by Sam, a talented and anarchistic American activist, who is part of a dynamic campaign opposed to older methods of trade union organising. They have a simple motto, 'No Justice, No Peace' and embark on a peaceful but highly imaginative guerrilla campaign for trade union recognition against cleaning companies and powerful corporate owners of the tower blocks.

Ken Loach's first US-set film exposes a side of Los Angeles that to date has been swept under the corporate carpet.

Written by Paul Laverty, Bread And Roses is set around the early 1990s Justice for Janitors strike which saw an army of exploited cleaners - the invisible Latino immigrants - take to the streets to protest for basic workers' rights. The film stars Pilar Padilla and Elpidia Carrillo as the two sisters involved in the struggle and Adrien Brody as a union activist who leads the campaign against their employers.

For Loach, the appeal was that "the film was set in another world that existed side by side with the movie world. It's about organising immigrant workers, (who are) very vulnerable and easily exploited. Having worked on a film in Nicaragua (Carla's Song), this seemed another element in the same wider story, the relationship between the US and countries that are essentially its colonies, economically and culturally."

The film was shot according to Loach's pared-down aesthetics, with a high shooting ratio that allowed the director to let the dialogue run on until he had what he needed. Making the film in the US with a significant number of extras meant the budget, at $5.5m, was higher than usual. It also meant Loach had to occasionally break the rules "which is always quite entertaining", he says.

Synopsis

Family high action adventure, aka 'Rebel Zone', features the rescue of hostages and gold bullion seized by armed terrorists led by a maritime Rebel Warlord. Royal Naval Frigate 'HMS Monarch', despatches a Royal Marine detail to track and confront the enemy at their tropical island HQ.

Synopsis

Local newspaper journalist, Cameron Colley, is setting the world to rights; his articles are idealistic, written from the viewpoint of the underdog. A twisted serial killer seems to have the same motives; his murders are committed on behalf of the underdog. The two stories begin to merge and Cameron finds himself inextricably and inexplicably implicated by the brutal killer. The arms dealer Cameron plans to expose is found literally 'disarmed' before he can put pen to paper. The brewery chief, loathed by Cameron, who sold up at the expense of his workers, finds himself permanently unemployable. And the malpractising doctor and corrupt newspaper proprietor meet with similarly sinister ends. The police are convinced of Cameron's guilt and so are half his friends and colleagues. Cameron is forced to employ all his investigative skills to find the real killer and his motive.
 
Based on Iain Banks novel "Complicity".

Synopsis

Post-colonial India of 1950's, and Cotton Mary, (Madhur Jeffrey) an Anglo-Indian nurse befriends expatriate Lily Macintosh (Greta Scacchi) at the premature birth of her baby. Lily's husband John, (James Wilby) a BBC correspondent, is away working, and she is exhausted and emotional after the birth, and further devastated after realising she is unable to breast feed her child.

Mary provides a vital lifeline by taking the baby on daily trips to her crippled sister, Blossom, a wet nurse who provides milk for the infant.

The success that Mary has in arranging for the feeding of the baby makes her indispensable to Lily, who offers her a permanent position in her home as a Nanny working with her family. Mary's relationship to the baby and her burgeoning friendship with Lily gives her a unique position to operate.

Mary abuses this relationship, and deviously does everything she can to gain control of the house and achieve the prestige of being both associated with, and of extreme importance to a British family.

Cotton Mary offers a thought provoking insight into the ambitions of an Anglo-Indian woman trapped in a class-ridden, status conscious society.

Synopsis

Somewhere in the countryside, an assassin slips into a country mansion with orders to kill its aged occupant. Somewhere in the city, a wounded thug blasts his way into a flat and takes a husband and wife hostage.


The old man in the mansion is a legendary crime Boss who has just made the fatal mistake of ordering the elimination of the rival gang. Betrayed by one of his own, his men have been rounded up in a bloody ambush. One of his thugs escapes and follows the Driver of the winning side back to his flat. Desperate to stay alive, the thug knows he will have to swap sides. His hostage, the driver, is his way in.


The Assassin has no intention of killing the Boss quickly; he's intrigued by this legend. He delays . . . to have a chat . . . to have a smoke . . . but little does he know what he's getting into. It is not the first time the Boss has stared down the barrel of a gun; at first he bides his time listening to this cowboy, just waiting for the right moment to start playing his own games.


Bleeding badly from a bullet in the shoulder, the Thug thinks he has found safety with the Driver and his Wife. However, the Driver is not all he seems and is in just as much danger as the Thug. Seeing events spiral out of control, the Wife decides to take matters into her own hands.


These stories are interwoven in a film about the necessity to keep talking in the face of death, even if you are the one holding the gun.

Synopsis

Although Atom Egoyan's first adaptation The Sweet Hereafter won the Cannes jury prize and scored two Academy Award nominations, the writer-director was initially uncertain about tackling another novel as the basis of his next film. But when Icon head of development Karen Glasser sent him William Trevor's Felicia's Journey he was won over.

"I was struck by the brilliance of the writing, the characters' depth and how many of the themes resonated with me," says Egoyan.

The story follows naive Irish teenager Felicia as she treks to Birmingham to find her lover Johnny, but instead encounters the sinister and faintly comic Mr Hilditch.

Egoyan, who was born in Cairo and grew up in Canada, brought an outsider's viewpoint to the film's locations, small-town Ireland and the industrial sprawl of the English Midlands. "I felt a responsibility," he says, "that both locations be presented with honesty and accuracy."

Egoyan also found working with British and Irish actors a fresh experience. He praised the calibre of the actors who include newcomer Elaine Cassidy as Felicia and Bob Hoskins as Hilditch. Felicia's Journey is firmly stamped with Egoyan's style and preoccupations. The film includes regular Egoyan collaborators such as DoP Paul Sarossy, editor Susan Shipson and composer Mychael Danna, while the director's muse Arsinee Khanjian plays Hilditch's extraordinary mother Gala. The film's structure jumps back and forward in time, incorporating video and film footage, in a way that will be familiar to Egoyan fans.

Felicia's Journey was released in the UK in October last year to critical acclaim.

Synopsis

Following is a wickedly clever story of how a young man's obsession with following people leads him into a dark underworld. Bill, the unlikely hero, is a marginalized but intriguing Everyman who follows strangers at random on the street. When Cobb a man Bill has been following, catches him in the act, Bill is drawn into Cobb's world of breaking into flats and prying into the personal lives of their victims. In Cobb, Bill finds a strange companionship, part mentor, part confessor and part evil twin. With an ingenious structure that involves flashforwards and doubling back, the film test and teases our knowledge and understanding just as it leads its hero into deeper and darker waters. This first feature heralds, in Christopher Nolan, a promising new talent to the indie film scene.

Synopsis

Human Traffic focuses on the lives and loves of five friends - JIP (played by John Simm), LULU (Lorraine Pilkington), KOOP (Shaun Parkes), NINA (Nicola Reynolds) and MOFF (Danny Dyer) --who suffer their weekday jobs to 'live it large' at the weekends.


Jip and Lulu are having relationship problems: Jip is insecure after failing to perform during several one night stands and Lulu's talent for picking the wrong bloke is getting her down. Nina and Koop have a great relationship - except he doesn't trust her, and Moff, their friendly dealer, is heading for a fast burn out.


Beneath the heady cocktail of music, clubs, drugs and bullshit, Human Traffic is also a film about friendships.

Synopsis

It is in 1947. India has been given its independence from British rule. The state of Pakistan, the first state to be created as a homeland for Muslims has been painfully born. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan realizes this great ambition and a year later succumbs to the illness through which he has willed himself to live. He is rushed to the hospital and when the ambulance stalls on the highway his life begins to ebb. In is coma Jinnah relives the dilemmas and triumphs of his life, the drama of his ideals, his romance, his happiness and the tragedy of the death of his wife.


Jinnah tells the dramatic story of the partition of India, the final intrigue and arguments between the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru and the mercurial Lady Mountbatten. It takes the handsome young idealist Jinnah on the journey through which his dream of freeing the people of India from the burden and the insult of foreign rule is twisted and tempered by the realities and cruelties of politics. It is the story of a practical visionary who knew that on his word hung the future of a nation, who knew also that such a birth meant a division of a country and of his family, because his only daughter had married an Indian and would remain in India.

Synopsis

A wickedly funny, comic take on the lives of a group of North London gangsters - and their passion for family, friends . . . and Karaoke.


Jonny dreams of leaving his dead-end job as a courier. Through his best friend Jude, nephew of the notorious crime lord Ray Kreed, he wins his way into the toughest gang in North London. Hungry for some real gangster action, Jonny sparks a deadly feud between Ray's gang and another firm in South London.


When a full-scale war erupts between the two sides, culminating in a murder at Ray's wedding, Ray and his opposite number in South London both decide that Jonny must be stopped at all costs.

Synopsis

A sexy, glamorous, romantic comedy, in the style of classic 1930's Hollywood, with world famous songs by Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.


In 1939 the King of Navarre and his three best friends swear an oath to give up women for three years whilst devoting themselves to the study of philosophy. One of the terms of their pledge specifically prohibits women from their presence, but the arrival of the Princess of France and her three beautiful attendants on a diplomatic visit, throws the plan into disarray.


In secret the King and each of his friends pursue the girls and the entire court become intoxicated by love.


The mood is broken by the news of the death of the Princess's father and the girls return to France. France has fallen to the Nazis.


Before they leave, the heartbroken men must prove that their love is not just an infatuation and remain faithful to them. And as proof of their devotion the loving couples are happily reunited at the end of the war.