Projects in genres: Asian

Synopsis

This compelling film follows refugees Jamal and Enayatullah as they travel overland to London, passing through Iran, Turkey, Italy and France. Their fictitious journey is a distillation of the experiences of a multitude of real life asylum seekers and migrants - courageous and resourceful people seeking a better life but whose stories so often end in tragedy.

Synopsis

This subtle, elliptic film follows a couple who return to the place they first met, exotic and seductive Goa, in the hope that this holiday will lift them out of the emotional and sexual despondency that their relationship has lapsed into. However, they remain trapped in their pattern of social routine, until their encounter with a beautiful, enigmatic girl initiates a confrontation between husband and wife, which uncovers the secrets they had kept from themselves and each other.

Synopsis

Safar is a tale of the Asian Diaspora told primarily through Super 8 'cine-letters' sent between India and England over a period of almost 40 years. It is one man's meditation, in old age, of how he came to lose his home.

Synopsis

Faye, a contemplative hairdresser, swings moodily between her western aspirations and her Chinese origins. Huang, a Chinese photographer with an expired visa, washes up in a salsa bar when not caressing the city with his camera. A faint romance temporarily flickers between them. Interweaving scenes, meanwhile, show us Cai and J J, two artists who appear to be in the act of preparing for some mysterious performance.

Synopsis

Light romantic tale of six philosophy students: Three girls and three guys who take the day off lectures to enjoy a beautiful summer day in Mile End park. Along the way they learn more about each other than planned and discover that apart from being thinkers; They're Lovers, Fighters and Dreamers.

Synopsis

The sudden death of Laura leaves her boyfriend, Hash, torn between feelings of love and betrayal. A troubled mind begins to distort memory as this tense drama unfolds. Did Laura really love him? Was their relationship everything it seemed? Drifting through levels of consciousness, questioning his own existence and haunted by treachery, Hash makes a most unexpected decision.

Synopsis

Meena is twelve years old and lives in the village of Tollington 'the jewel of the Black Country' - in 1972. She is the daughter of Indian parents who have come to England to give her a better life. Her idyllic adolescence, surrounded by eccentric relatives and friends, is disrupted by the arrival in Tollington of Anita Rutter and her dysfunctional family. At 14 - blonde, aloof, beautiful, outrageous and sassy - Anita is everything Meena thinks she wants to be. Meena wheedles her way into Anita's life, but the arrival of a baby brother, teenage hormones, impending entrance exams for the posh grammar school and a motorcycling rebel without a future, threaten to turn her salad days sour. ANITE AND ME paints a comic, poignant, compassionate and colourful portrait of village life in the era of flares, power cuts, glam rock, decimalisation and Ted Heath.

Synopsis

Bend It Like Beckham is a British 'Teen-Comedy' about bending the rules to get what you want. If you're 18, love Beckham and can bend a ball like him the world's your oyster, right? Wrong. If you're Jess - 18, Indian and a girl - forget it. Do you think your marriage-obsessed folks will let you play a Man's game? If you're Jules - 18, English and a girl - what will it take to convince your mother that just because you play footie with girls doesn't mean you're a lesbian? Both girls dream of playing professionally - that means going to the States where the girls get paid, get sponsorship and get proper respect. Jess and Jules are on their way with help from their coach, Joe, until they both fall in love with him.

Synopsis

Geena and Jay are star-crossed young lovers from opposite sides of the East London racial divide. Geena is second generation British Asian, born of a Gujurati family. Jay is small town, white and working class. Fresh from leaving school in the West Country, 18 year old Jay joins his elder brother Darren in London, working alongside him in the East End clothing business. In between humping garments from sweat shop to market place, Jay sets his dreams to music on his guitar. Geena is also through with school, and starts her business studies course in the autumn. Meanwhile she must earn her keep in the family firm, which imports material and sarees from India. Chafing against an over-protective home life and its strict ideas about a woman's place, Geena escapes as she always has; into Bollywood-tinged fantasies. When Geena has her fortune told by a jyotish astrologer, she is shocked to be told she's in love. Surely not with the ambitious computer wizz, Dillip, whose BMW she sometimes shares? Or one of the clammy-handed conformists paraded by her parents at innumerable family functions as possible suitors? Then she bumps into Jay, and Cupid's dart pierces both their hearts. Once they have shared the first secretive 'karma-kiss', their worlds become inextricably tangled. But true love never runs smoothly. Geena's brothers have ambitions for the family business, and are moving into the lucrative but illegal world of 'moodies' - fake designer garments. What's more, their skill and competitive pricing are putting their rivals out of business, most especially the firm of East End wide boys for whom Darren and Jay are working.

Synopsis

London 2001. The future has arrived, but Jaz and Naz are disappointed with the science fiction they grew up with. Until their unintentional involvement with a bunch of East End criminals makes a dream come true.

Synopsis

Written in the violent language of the inner city, Skin Deep charts one night with Romo, a mixed race boy, half English, half Pakistani, who lives in a run-down, all white neighbourhood. Passing as white, he has to confront his identity when his skinhead gang target a young Asian boy.

Synopsis

The Mystic Masseur, a joyful drama of optimism, self-belief and wondrous imagination, that can work miracles. Based on the first novel of Nobel winning V S Naipaul,The Mystic Masseur , is the first ever film adaptation of any of Naipaul's work. The Mystic Masseur tells the story of 'Ganesh', a struggling author, who finds his fortune when he discovers he has an ability to cure people's minds. It is rare to see a rags-to-riches story in which we are so intimately involved with the characters, so sympathetic to them, and led so easily to understand that riches may not always be a good trade for the happiness of youthful ambition.