Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

Simon Magus is the poignant and magical story of an outcast called Simon, who is treated with a mixture of fear, suspicion and guarded affection by the Jewish and Christian inhabitants of a village in 19th century Poland. It is also the story of the village itself, a community in crisis now that the railway has arrived, passing the village by, taking away all its trade, and threatening its future.


Simon has visions and strange dreams, a fantastical view of the world. For some villagers, Simon is a harmless idiot, but in a place where people still believe in angels and charms, to others he is a magician in league with the devil himself.


The crisis comes in the battle to build a railway station and save the village. Maximillian Hase, moneyed, ruthless and determined to succeed, uses Simon's feelings of isolation to his own ends, employing him as a spy to root out his competition in the village's Jewish community.


The Christian Squire, a sensitive and lonely man with a passion for poetry, must be persuaded to allow the station to be built on his land. Dovid, a poor young Jew, realises that an appreciation of poetry is the way to succeed in the railway station bid. Only the city educated Sarah from the Jewish community shares this passion for poetry, but she and the Squire have never yet spoken. Dovid enlists Sarah's help to secure his bid.


Simon is seduced by Hase's bribes and is unwittingly playing a critical role in the battle for the railway. . .

Synopsis

Against a backdrop of racial tension and industrial unrest in the Welsh Valleys of 1911, Solomon and Gaenor tells the moving and passionate story of illicit love between a Welsh girl and a Jewish boy. Gaenor, born into a family of strict chapel-goers, falls for Solomon, a young pedlar, who conceals his Jewish identity from Gaenor and her family. The couple, from similar yet very distinctive worlds, fall helplessly in love. The odds are against them, however, as the outraged community in which they live, conspires to destroy their fragile happiness.

Synopsis

In the spirit of The Full Monty and The Commitments, Swing is the heartwarming, triumphant story of working class friends who break free from their bleak Liverpool lives to follow their dreams and launch a swing band.


Young Martin finds himself in prison, the fall guy for his brother. When Martin gets out, the guards hand him two years of unopened love letters and a warning: get a job or end up back in jail. Home is just as he left it - hopeless. Martin's only hope comes from the sage advice from his sax-playing cell mate, Jack, who taught him how to see his future and how to play it. Martin decides to start his own band.


He recruits bassist Buddy, a skirt chasing football star, drummer Oi, an ex-skinhead, and a brass section made up of bar flies who owe his dad a favour. But the one person who can transform the band from a dream to success is the beautiful singer Joan, the love of Martin's life. Joan, married to Martin's arresting officer, wonders if this is just another one of Martin's dead end dreams.


Martin convinces them all, most of all Joan, that their dream is worth fighting for. Despite a raid staged by Joan's jealous husband, the band's break-through gig is a smashing success and it lands them a recording contract, a happy ending! That is . . . until the police find that Martin's brother backed the band with stolen money and Martin ends up back in jail. But this time Martin walks out of jail with Jack and finds Joan and his band waiting and ready to swing!

Synopsis

Paul McGuigan's The Acid House is a surreal triptych adapted by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh from his collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humour with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche. The first film of the trilogy, The Granton Star Cause, is a black comedy of revenge, football and religion. The second, A Soft Touch, is a story of love and betrayal with Johnny as the 'soft touch', who is all too easily manipulated by those around him. The final film is a surreal comic story about marriage, babies and an excess of chemical abuse.

Synopsis

Jimmy looks like a punk, but he's a child at heart.





This modern day silent film follows him through one day - from being thrown out by his girlfriend, meeting the magical Balloon man, being chased by two slapstick thugs, to finding happiness with Iris in a roomful of balloons.

Synopsis

Hogarth's England of 1776 and the nouveau riche Sterlings - all city money and no class, and the country aristocratic Oglebys - all class and no money, are brought together by the intended marriage of Lord Ogleby's son, Sir John and Sterling's eldest daughter, Betsy.


However, Betsy's sister Fanny, who has secretly married her father's clerk, Lovewell, by whom she is pregnant, quickly becomes the object of affection not only of Sir John but of his elderly father. Betsy is furious, as is her aunt Mrs Heidleberg, who rules her brother and his household with a rod of iron. Fanny desperately tries to stave off the attentions of both men while her father secretly agrees to exchange one daughter for the other.


Soon the entire company is at loggerheads and cross purposes, Fanny's secret wedding is revealed, and all the while the clock ticks towards the wedding, which must take place if both families are not to loose face.


This exuberant, sexy and cheerfully astringent comedy of errors, where genuine heartache and true love jostle with lust and greed, is set against the glories of an English country house in high summer and is as sharply relevant today as ever.

Synopsis

1913 - A remote island in the middle of the roaring Atlantic hosts a wedding. The beautiful Sirsa has decided to try and forget her true love, the wild and romantic Ivar, choosing instead to marry Harald, son of the most important family on the island. While Ivar and Harald battle for Sirsa's affections, the colourful assortment of guests dance the rhythmic and hypnotic Faroese dance, only breaking from their merriment for a shipwreck, looters, a close encounter with the devil and the disappearance of the bride.

Synopsis

A bittersweet comedy about love and freedom set in the 1950's in a northern English seaside town. Ruby lives and works in her father's eccentric fish shop and dreams of a more exciting life. She sees her chance of escape in the arrival of the new young fish delivery boy. But on the night of their elopement, not everything goes to plan . . .

Synopsis

The action is set in County Cork, in Southern Ireland in 1920. The film is a portrait of the end of an era, and the demise of a class and a way of life that have survived for centuries. It is also a psychological drama depicting the opposing emotions of love and the longing for freedom; of the lure of complacency and the hunger for change; of 'old ways' against the terrifying prospect of independence, both political and spiritual; above all, it is a portrait of a young woman's coming of age in a brutalised time and place.

Synopsis

You wouldn't describe Leicester as a fast town, but that suits Frank just fine. Overweight and out of work, Frank exists in a fantasy world in which he's cast himself as a vigilante for hire. But when he's thrown out of home by his long-suffering mother, Frank has to face reality.


Looking for somewhere to spend the night, Frank meets the hopelessly naive Kenny, who helps his alcoholic father run a dilapidated B & B. For two years, Kenny has dreamt of vengeance against London hard-man Donut for the savage beating he administered to Kenny's much admired elder brother. So when Frank arrives, boasting of his years in the SAS, Kenny sees his dreams of revenge coming to fruition. The pair arm themselves with a reconstructed handgun, and head for London.


But Frank and Kenny are faced all too soon with their obvious inadequacies as hit men, when they arrive at Donut's flat to find him missing, and have to deal with his street-wise girlfriend instead. The situation spirals badly out of control, and Frank and Kenny turn upon each other until they realise that, truly, the only way out of this mess is to work together.


The Last Yellow is a powerful, hilarious, tragic and ultimately redemptive story which celebrates the irrepressible spirit of two very ordinary men.

Synopsis

The Match, is a contemporary romantic comedy set in Inverdoune, an idyllic village nestling amidst the spectacular scenery of the Scottish Highlands.


Wullie Smith, still carrying the physical and emotional scars of a childhood tragedy, is Inverdoune's milkman, a young man whose potential is concealed behind his gently uncertain exterior. Wullie is known locally for his remarkable TFR (Total Football Recall) and for his not-very-secret love for Rosemary Bailey, the beautiful daughter of Bill Bailey, a local farmer with a curious affection for cows. Rosemary has returned briefly to Inverdoune, after five years away at university and she plans to leave again to pursue a career in the big city. Wullie's dreams of winning her are helped by the wisdom and insight of the remarkable Buffalo, a troubled semi-alcoholic American left stranded in Scotland after his USAF unit moved away.


The single-street village has only two pubs: Benny's Bar owned by Big Tam, the ramshackle spiritual home of its delightfully eccentric clientele, and L'Bistro, a place of sterile modernity owned by the preening narcissist, Gorgeous Gus.


Benny's Bar may soon be lost forever. A bet made to settle a feud between the original owners of the two bars, is to be finally resolved by the result of the 100th annual football contest between the two bars. Past form indicates poor prospects for the team from Benny's Bar which has lost the match for 99 years in a row. But it is only the result of this, the centenary game, which will determine which of the two bars will be closed forever. . .

Synopsis

After the British left India, Anglo-Indians fell from grace. And Morris Jelly dropped like a stone. He hit the filthy streets of Calcutta in all their hallucinogenic splendour and life became a dream. Even in death his mercurial spirit runs rings around his friends.