Projects

Synopsis

In a last-ditch attempt to save a Boston Senator's chances of re-election to Washington, his campaign director, Marcy, flies to Ballinamore in Ireland and to her bemusement, arrives during the annual matchmaking festival. Her mission is to shoot a campaign film presenting her boss as a family values candidate close to his Irish roots, but what awaits her on the Emerald Isle is not exactly what she had anticipated.

Synopsis

'The Misadventures of Margaret' is a romantic comedy set in two time frames - contemporary New York and 18th Century France.





It tells the story of a young American academic, Margaret Nathan, whose ordered, safe existence and seven year-old marriage to English professor Edward starts to fall apart when she begins to adapt a French diary, written by a dashing but pompous 18th Century man of letters, known simply as The Philosopher.





The diary relates the seduction by the Philosopher of a Young Girl, newly arrived from England, and her subsequent undermining of his dearly-held opinions regarding life and love.





As Margaret continues to adapt the diary, she begins to question not only her marriage but also her philosophy of life. Her vivid imagination catapults her into a series of encounters that include her handsome, but rather dim, dentist Dr Lipi, the charmingly earnest sound engineer, Martin and her bi-sexual friend, Lily. At the same time she forces her sister Till Turner to re-evaluate her own relationship with her womanising novelist husband Art.





When Margaret beings to suspect that Edward is having an affair with one of his young students, the terribly determined Sarah from Brighton, she moves in with her gay best friend and cynical publisher, Richard Lane, in order, as she says 'to throw her last scruple to the wind'.





Will Margaret's marriage survive her 'misadventures'? Will she?





Based on Cathleen Schine's acclaimed comic novel, 'Rameau's Niece', 'The Misadventures of Margaret' is a very contemporary film with a know-ing nod to Hollywood's Golden Age of comedy.

Synopsis

A struggling, highly strung young film-maker/poet is only two minutes into shooting a pretentious, poorly presented documentary about his old car, when the smug mockery of a passing BMW driver fills him with uncontrollable fury. Little does he know that his own crew have seen the potential for a better film in the events that are to follow...

Synopsis

Talented young carpenter Robert Bradley moves from the Jarrow shipyards to the country to join his uncle's furniture business in 1913. Life in the country is not always the idyll he had imagined and Robert is eventually driven from his uncle's home by damning accusations. Robert quickly finds work with the Thormans of Foreshaw Park where his meeting with the Thorman sisters provides a further conflict in an already self-destructive household.

Synopsis

The film is an analysis of the spiralling consciousness of a dying man. His delirious memories of events past, and possibly future, are spun into a cascade of abstract and twisted glimpses.

Synopsis

Set against a background of child prostitution in Victorian England, The Rag Nymph tells the story of Millie and her relationship with Raggie Aggie, the woman who takes her in after she is abandoned by her mother. As Millie grows up, she transforms the lives of Aggie and her lodger, Ben, in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Synopsis

Howard Spitz is dissatisfied with his lot in life. For years he has been writing unsuccessful and trashy detective novels; now his creditors, his agent, Lou, and his publishers are dissatisfied with Howard. Then he gets his big break. Howard discovers there is an audience out there for his unique writing style... and they are all under twelve years old. His trenchcoated bovine detective 'Crafty Cow' is an instant hit.





The problem is that the idea isn't all his. Ten year old Samantha is his creative partner. And she will only keep working if Howard helps her to find her long-lost father. Meanwhile, Howard realises he can't cope with the adulation and publicity his success has brought. He hires a dim-witted actor, Roger, to impersonate him as they all travel round the country promoting 'Crafty Cow'.





The search for Samantha's father continues, and Howard, who never saw himself as remotely paternal, finds himself united with Laura, Samantha's mother, in parental concern. Could it be that the heart of world weary Howard is melting to both Samantha and her mother? THE REAL HOWARD SPITZ is a heart-warming and romantic comedy about the lives of a number of absurd, funny and endearing characters.

Synopsis

Gypsies and Travellers: happy people in painted wagons, touring the rural lanes of Britain. Or are they? The Road explores perceptions of traditional travelling life versus the reality of being a Gypsy in Britain today, using a montage of images and voices to create a picture of a close and closed society.

Synopsis

Set in the late 1950's and early '60s The Round Tower is the story of convent-school educated Vanessa Ratcliffe, rough diamond Angus Cotton, and the events which draw the unlikely pair together. Angus, a supervisor at the engineering works run by Vanessa's father, is blamed when scandal threatens the wealthy Ratcliffe family. The situation kick starts his own ambitious plans for the future, a future which unexpectedly comes to include Vanessa.

Synopsis

A visual jigsaw is assembled across an array of screens revealing a series of interconnecting worlds.

Synopsis

The Scar is about a community in crisis. Twelve years after the miners' strike, the developers are moving in and history is being erased by the bulldozers. But the scars of the past run deep and the bitterness of the men and women whose lives have been destroyed survives beneath the cosmetic cover.





The film's catalyst is May Murton. The onset of the menopause, the failure of her marriage and the disintegration of her community have shattered both her personal and political beliefs. Like many women who were active during the strike, it is May who has been left to clean up the mess. But time has taken its toll. Her teenage children Dale and Becky are increasingly out of control, and her estranged husband Tony has flown the nest to take up residence in the allotments perched high above town. Tony views the town from above, realising what has been lost but, like many former miners stripped of the capacity to re-engage with a society which has treated him so cruelly. When May falls in love with Roy, who manages a nearby open-cast mine, she must cross the political divide between them - changing their lives forever.

Synopsis

The Sea Change is a contemporary romantic comedy. The main focus is on Rupert, a very successful city businessman, and his relationship with his girlfriend Alison. Rupert thinks that all he needs to complete his successful 'life package' (prosperous career, designer flat, luxurious car), is a wife.





Rupert takes Alison out to lunch and confidently proposes, but to his utter astonishment, Alison does not say yes or no; only that she may consider marrying him if he were to change.





However now Rupert's problems really begin after he attempts to return early from his business trip to Barcelona, and attend Alison's birthday. His plane becomes redirected to Madrid, he's arrested by customs and he encounters Chas the builder, a chance meeting that changes Rupert's outlook on life for ever. By the time he makes it back to London he is a different person, but his next hurdle is convincing the understandably sceptical Alison that he has changed for the better.