In 1924 Englishman George Mallory was torn between his love for a woman, Ruth, and his obsession with the last great adventure left to man: becoming the first person to climb Mount Everest.
Dressed in gabardine and wearing hobnailed boots, Mallory was last seen alive 800 feet below the summit. Then the clouds rolled in and he disappeared into legend.
Following his discovery of Mallory’s body in 1999, modern adventurer Conrad Anker became haunted by Mallory’s story. In 2007 Conrad returns to Everest to lay Mallory’s ghost to rest. He risks everything to discover the truth about this compelling and gilded man from a bygone era. And to rewrite history.
This feature documentary is directed by leading film maker, Anthony Geffen, in his first collaboration with Executive Producer, Mike Medavoy.
Liam Neeson narrates the film. Ralph Fiennes, Hugh Dancy and Alan Rickman provide additional voices. Ruth Mallory is voiced by the late Natasha Richardson in her final film role.
After a disastrous summer with the Dursleys, including an encounter with the Dementors, Harry is shunned by friends upon returning to Hogwarts, after the return of Lord Voldemort and no one believes him. He starts his fifth year while new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge refuses to teach them defensive spells while refuting Harry's claims of the Dark Lord's return. So Harry sets out, with Ron and Hermione, to battle evil forces and prepare the fellow young witches and wizards for the extraordinary journey that lies ahead.
Two hitmen, the younger, Ray, the older, Ken, are sent to hide out in the strange Gothic, medieval town of Bruges, Belgium, after a hit they were involved with in London went wrong; hired to execute a Catholic priest, Ray also accidentally killed a seven-year-old boy outside a confessional.
While awaiting instructions from their boss, the volatile Harry Waters, who ordered the priest's killing for reasons only he knows, Ray attempts to deal with his darkness and despair over the death of the boy in this town that he can't bear, while Ken, who adores the place, tries to help his friend the best he can.
Ray meets a beautiful girl. Things start looking up. Ken gets the order from Harry to execute Ray. Things start looking down.
Romance and violence ensues. Honour and dramatic reversals abound. There will be dwarves and there will be drugs, and the dark, cobbled streets of this oddball town will be riven with blood and the retort of gunfire and the sickening screams of the guilty and the innocent. Few will get out of Bruges alive.
What do you do when your wife Iona Aylesbury (Kristin Scott Thomas) can’t tell the difference between a shrink and a shop, your eight-year-old son Orlando spray paints his rabbit’s name on the walls to get attention, while his gay godfather Stephen (Ralph Fiennes) lies half beaten to death in hospital. Your boss is drawing you into a scam which could cost you your career, your father Edward Aylesbury has an illegitimate love child with his former mistress Gloria (Penelope Cruz), her social worker Colin (Rhys Ifans) can’t help prying into her past and present, and your stepmother Penelope's (Harriet Walter) bond with her dogs is your best role model of a loving relationship. Every family has secrets it hides behind the walls of its home - these are the dilemmas and secrets of Marcus Aylesbury (Damian Lewis).
When Marcus’s old ‘friend’ Trent (Ben Chaplin), an intelligent investigative journalist, gets wind of a story he knows will make him a media star the good old virtues of honesty, loyalty and friendship are sacrificed to the new morality of success and celebrity. Pushed by his powerhouse editor, Trent is forced to bend his ideals of using journalism to make a difference - and instead focuses on writing ‘sexy stories that sell’. This darkly comedic drama relentlessly pulls these characters into situations which threaten their stable place in a society where privilege and birth are no longer powerful enough to protect the fortunate few, and where the American values of money, beauty and success have become the cornerstones of contemporary London life.
Harry's fourth summer and the following year at Hogwarts are marked by the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament, in which student representatives from three different wizarding schools compete in a series of increasingly challenging contests. However, Voldemort's Death Eaters are gaining strength and even creating the Dark Mark, giving evidence that the Dark Lord is ready to rise again.
In the unsuspecting lives of the young wizards and witches at Hogwarts the competitors are selected by the goblet of fire, which this year makes a very surprising announcement: Hogwarts will have two representatives in the tournament, including Harry Potter! Will Harry be able to rise to the challenge for the Triwizard Tournament while keeping up with school or will the challenges along with Voldemort's rebirth be too much for the young hero?
It's ‘vege-mania’ in Wallace and Gromit’s neighbourhood and our intrepid chums are cashing in as elite pest-control duo Anti-pesto. With only days to go before the annual Giant Vegetable Competition, business is booming!
But running a 'humane' pest control outfit has its drawbacks. Wallace and Gromit's home is brimful of captive bunnies and Gromit's daily task of feeding the ever-expanding population is second only to his job of feeding his master: with all their recent success, Wallace has been over-indulging in his beloved cheese and Gromit is struggling to keep him on a strict vegetable diet. True to form, Wallace resorts to technology to cure all his problems with 'the Mind-manipulation-o-matic', a simple brain-altering device.
All is well until an unexplained, nocturnal, veg-ravaging rabbit monster begins attacking the town's sacred vegetable plots. Soon the townsfolk are in uproar and the fate of the competition lies in the balance, until beautiful heiress and vegetable competition hostess Lady Tottington, impressed with Wallace’s humane methods, commissions Anti-pesto to apprehend the beast and save the day. Wallace's aspirations rise - this is just the sort of client he's dreamed of.
From Fernando Meirelles, the Academy Award-nominated director of City of God, comes a gripping new film that sweeps audiences along one man’s emotional and global journey to uncover the truth behind a personal loss and a worldwide conspiracy.
In a remote area of Northern Kenya, the region’s most dedicated activist, the brilliant and passionate Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz), has been found brutally murdered. Tessa’s travelling companion, a local doctor, appears to have fled the scene, and the evidence points to a crime of passion. Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), Sir Bernard Pellegrin (Bill Nighy), and the other members of the British High Commission assume that Tessa’s widower, their mild-mannered and unambitious colleague Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), will leave the matter to their discretion, but against their advice, Justin takes matters into his own hands to find his wife’s killers and avenge her untimely death.
Two-time Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz head the cast of the romantic thriller The Constant Gardener, adapted by Jeffrey Caine from the novel of the same name by John le Carré and filmed on location in Berlin, London, and Nairobi and numerous other parts of Kenya.
Set in Shanghai in the late 1930s, this is the story of the relationship between a disillusioned former US diplomat and a refugee White Russian countess reduced to a sordid life in the city's bars, on the eve of the Japanese invasion.
It's a story that's been told for 2000 years, but never like this. The Miracle Maker is a brilliant new portrayal of Jesus, uniquely innovative yet convincingly authentic. Powerfully told through the voices of a distinguished cast, it begins with the chance encounter between a sick young girl, Tamar (Rebecca Callard), her Pharisee father Jairus (William Hurt) and the quietly resolute carpenter (Ralph Fiennes).
Tamar becomes one of an ever-increasing following fascinated by the spiritual strength and leadership of this charismatic man, but her father and other people in authority are troubled by Jesus' ability to inspire the people. Plotting against him, the rich and powerful Ben Azra (Anthony Sher) arranges the murder of Jesus' faithful friend John the Baptist (Richard E. Grant) and stirs up the authorities against him. While Jesus shocks the leaders by healing the crazed woman Mary Magdalene (Miranda Richardson), Jairus knows he could ask Jesus to save his dying daughter, as his wife Rachel (Julie Christie) begs him to do.
Now the unstoppable conflict between belief and authority will come to a head when the great pilgrimage reaches Jerusalem in a confrontation between the power of God and the power of Rome, wielded by Pilate (Ian Holm).
Vividly effective, this epic international co-production combines the rich detail of three-dimensional model animation, graphically striking two-dimensional animation and sophisticated computer effects to achieve extraordinary intensity and realism. It has been written especially to appeal to children and families, who will find themselves irresistibly involved in the power struggles and passion, despair and elation of the man who is 'The Miracle Maker'.
With it's compelling tale of romantic tragedy in nineteenth century Russia, Alexander Pushkin's epic novel 'Eugene Onegin', has moved and intrigued audiences for 150 years.
Captivated by its powerful narrative about love and loss, award winning actor Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler's List) and his sister, director Martha Fiennes, have assembled a talented and exciting team to bring Pushkin's story to the screen.
Evgeny Onegin is a jaded and disaffected young man who leaves St Petersburg unexpectedly when he inherits an estate from a wealthy uncle. In the country, he is a city sophisticate out of place, with little affinity for the countryside or its people. Nevertheless he strikes up a warm friendship with a neighbour, Vladimir Lensky and, despite his natural cynicism, he is charmed by Lensky's love for his fiancée Olga. He is also intrigued by Olga's sister, Tatyana, a spirited beauty who surprises him with a passionate declaration of love. Onegin is disturbed by her directness but unable to respond and, coolly and politely, rejects her love.
As if needing to demonstrate the cruelty of his nature, Onegin later insults Olga and is challenged to a duel by Lensky who's code of honour prevails when Onegin attempts to extricate both of them from the confrontation. Onegin's shot is fatal and, grief-stricken, he cradles his best friend's body in his arms. Afterwards he leaves and goes into self-imposed exile.
Six years later, Onegin returns to St Petersburg where he again encounters Tatyana, now married to his cousin Prince Nikitin. In realisation of the bitter mistake he made years ago, Onegin determines to claim her and Tatyana is faced with the most difficult decision of her life.
"It's the simplest of stories but the dramatic core is very strong," says Neil Jordan of Graham Greene's novel on which The End Of The Affair is based.
Inspired by Greene's own affair with Catherine Walston, the story tells of an adulterous romance between writer Maurice Bendrix and civil servant's wife Sarah Miles. Miles breaks off the affair and Bendrix only later discovers that it is not another man who came between them but a bargain she made with God.
For Jordan, the casting was crucial to making this intense drama of moral dilemmas "understandable and believable in human terms". Ralph Fiennes proved a natural choice for Bendrix as far as the director and his long-time collaborator, producer Stephen Woolley, were concerned. "I thought Ralph would convey that disenchanted, embittered 1940s intellectual," says Jordan. When it came to choosing Sarah, Jordan tested several actresses but says Julianne Moore "blew me away". His decision more than paid off when Moore was nominated this year for best actress in the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes. Jordan regular Stephen Rea took on the role of Sarah's husband Henry. "It was a real challenge for Stephen, but he manages to portray Henry sympathetically without putting the other characters in a bad light," says Woolley.
After a limited US release at the end of 1999, The End Of The Affair was released in the UK in February and has since opened internationally. Besides best actress, it scored an Oscar nomination for Roger Pratt's cinematography, and Golden Globe nods for Jordan and for Michael Nyman's score. It also won several awards at this year's Baftas.
OSCAR AND LUCINDA is a story of fate and chance in which the throw of a dice or the fall of a card can affect many lives. It is also the extraordinary love story of two orphans from opposite sides of the world. Both are gamblers but also innocents who gain experience, with difficulty and with joy, in the colourful times of the mid-nineteenth century.
