Projects matching: Just

Synopsis

Young American antiques dealer, Charles, is captivated by the enigmatic Mrs Hoogstraten when he finds her giving him the once-over at a London flea market. She is married to the brilliant but stifling Hoogstraten, a wealthy collector of unfathomable objects. But her look tells Charles that she's ready for a change. Charles's shiftless existence takes on a new purpose as he searches for increasingly bizarre contraptions to satisfy Hoogstraten's peculiar appetite and so to get nearer to Mrs Hoogstraten. The trail leads to a mysterious young woman, a narrow-boat laden with Egyptian antiquities, and the sinister Dr MacGregor. When Charles returns to London, he finds that Mrs Hoogstraten is about to leave . . . and wants him to join her on a night train to Venice. Charles sees his dreams about to come true - but what is he getting himself into? Is he just another 'thing' to be used in the Hoogstraten game of manipulation, obsession and desire? What do the Hoogstratens really want? A night of passion unleashes uncontrollable forces in this extraordinary tale of mystery, romance, antique mechanical objects, and murder. Set in a contemporary London of crumbling Gothic Victoriana, with music from the 1920's through to the present, and masterful lighting by Ken Westbury (Dennis Potter's director of photography), Unknown Things is an incisive, sardonic exploration of sex, death, and the darkest corners of the mind . . . a chilling, sinister love story strongly played by a young and sexy British cast.

Synopsis

Seventeen year old Justine (Laura Fraser) is fed up with the lack of success she has with guys. It seems as though the boys have it easier. She's ready to take that big step, but with whom? To ensure she chooses the right candidate - her 'Mr Barcode' - Justine enlists the help of her worldly-wise best friend Fran (Marcelle Duprey). Alex (Kieran O'Brien), the school stud is the obvious choice. So together, Justine, Fran and their geeky friend Chas (Luke De Lacey) hatch a plot to get Alex to a computer show where he is bound to fall for Justine's charms. Only things don't go according to plan! At the last moment, Alex abandons the plotting trio in order to go out with the man-eating Hoover (Natasha Bell). A deflated Justine wanders through the great halls while Chas is in his perfect world. None of the excitement of the show can soothe the rejection she feels until she is enticed into the make-over machine, the Narcissus. Their machine can give you the face you've dreamt of; in fact the 'you' of your fantasies can be yours with the help of the Narcissus! Having created the perfect Justine on screen, she then sets about creating her ideal man.

Synopsis

The film tells the story, based on true events, of a female journalist who, with little concern for her own safety, took on the bloody force of the Dublin criminal underworld at great cost to herself. The story starts in 1995 with Sinead Hamilton (Joan Allen) already deep into an investigation of the Dublin Mafia. Racing at 100 miles an hour through the Dublin hills, we find Sinead interviewing the notorious armed robber Martin Shaughnessy (Peter Postlethwaite) as his car screeches through the narrow country lanes. Shaughnessy insists that the corruption and degradation of Dublin is due, not to the likes of him - everyday armed robbers - but to the ruthless gangs running the ever growing and vastly profitable drug business. A business that corrupts all that it touches. These are the people that Sinead wants to expose; the drug barons gorging themselves on the city. Soon after the interview is published Shaugnessy is assassinated. At the murder scene Sinead meets Mackey (Patrick Bergin), a local Police Detective. Mackey is the classic cynical cop - tough, angry and tired. Though he knows he's fighting a losing battle investigating these sorts of crimes, there's still just enough of the idealist left, to make him carry on. However, though Sinead and Mackey have the same purpose, their methods could not be more different. So the scene is set. Heavily out-gunned in every respect, Sinead risks everything in her relentless pursuit of the underworld gangsters with only her wit, guile and sheer bravery to protect her. It's an investigation in which she discovers that truth has a cost, and that ultimately someone has to pay . . .

Synopsis

Michael E Scott, 'international vocalist', is a club singer who spends his life on the road performing his cabaret act to uncaring audiences. Confident and optimistic, he believes success is just around the corner. Is he deluding himself, or does he really have talent?

Synopsis

The second feature from Stella Does Tricks director Coky Giedroyc, Women Talking Dirty charts the ups and downs in the relationship between two friends in Edinburgh: headstrong single mother Cora (Helena Bonham Carter) and shy but successful cartoonist Ellen (Gina McKee) who is struggling to support her no-good gambling husband. As they gamely deal with the vicissitudes of life, their friendship is tested but ultimately proves too strong to crumble. The film is based on the popular novel by Scottish author Isla Dewar, published in 1996, and marks the debut production from Elton John's Rocket Pictures, which acquired the rights to the novel and then brought on board Giedroyc on the strength of her previous film. Rocket then teamed up with Jean Doumanian, the New York-based producer best known for her collaborations with Woody Allen, in an Anglo-American co-production. The work-in-progress print was screened at last year's Toronto Film Festival, since when the film has been back into the cutting rooms for fine-tuning. It has just been completed. Meanwhile, Rocket Pictures is developing a number of features across the genres and budget ranges, including the partly-animated Just So series, in co-production with the Walt Disney Co, and So I Am Glad, an adaptation of another Scottish novel, this time by AL Kennedy, which will be co-produced and star husband and wife team Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.

Synopsis

Broughton 'B' FC aren't just bad, they're awful. They cheerfully face a weekly inevitable annihilation with scores such as 27-0. This young team never let defeat get them down even when their sponsor, the local optician, offers them free eye tests. A heart-warming film which shows that hope really does spring eternal.

Synopsis

When Channe is six the world is an exciting place. Her father, Bill Willis, is a famous American writer. Sometimes he has nightmares about his time as a soldier, but on the whole, life is pretty good. It's the 1960's and he's living in Paris with his fiercely loyal wife Marcella who curses when she loses at poker and isn't afraid to stand up to anyone - though her irreverent sense of justice leads to her children being expelled from their school. And Channe herself is happy to be caught between the fast talking, fun loving American way of life at home and the French world she inhabits by day - until, that is, Little Bill appears on the scene. His name is really Benoit, but Willis has trouble pronouncing it and Little Bill wants so much to be an American that he chooses the name of his new father. Channe is hostile to the latest member of the family. So what if his teenage mother was forced to give him up and he is destined to spend his life in an orphanage? Marcella, however, is ecstatic that she has been blessed with a son she could never have naturally - though life would be sweeter if Little Bill's real mother would only agree to sign the adoption papers. As the family watch John Wayne films dubbed into French, and traditional accordion music competes with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Channe's relationship with her new brother swings between one of friendship to that of adversaries - sometimes threatening the unique and candid relationship Channe has with her father. As she grows, Channe becomes increasingly caught between two separate cultures and finds that acceptance by either is a hard fought battle.

Synopsis

London, 13th October 1993. The day England are to play Holland in a critical World Cup qualifier. The Bosnian war is at its height, Sebrenica is besieged and the UN are preparing relief airdrops. A Serb (Dado Jehan) and a Croat (Faruk Pruti) meet on a London bus. Recognising each other as fellow refugees from the same village in Bosnia they immediately renew their contact by . . . attempting to beat each other to a pulp. Their subsequent manic chase through the streets of central London sets the scene for the electric comedy of Beautiful People. Jasmin Dizdar's extraordinary debut feature film tracks the interlinked and troubled lives of four British families whose encounters with refugees from the war in former Yugoslavia helps them to see the beauty that exists in their own lives. Beautiful People unites its disaffected, troubled and eccentric characters in a panoramic portrait of London's melting pot of class and culture and infuses it with a dark comedy which has at its heart a profound understanding that if 'life changes just a little bit in your favour - it can be beautiful'.

Synopsis

Seven very different people are gathered in a brightly lit but sparsely furnished white room. The only thing they have in common is Virgil Guppy. Virgil isn't there having just been flattened by a ten ton truck. Virgil's odyssey unfolds as the seven wait in the white room. Virgil Guppy is going to buy a car. Not just any car but a luxury car. This is more than a simple deal. Virgil is not just buying a car, he is buying the last piece of the jigsaw that, with the flat, the job, the wardrobe, even the girlfriend, fit together to make up what Virgil hopes is his identity. Virgil buys the Jaguar, low mileage but slightly damaged bodywork, from David Leer and his son Buddy, two clearly dodgy dealers. Sure enough within four miles the car dies quite spectacularly. Virgil fails to claim his money through the courts and, worse still, his car came with the optional extra of a dead body hidden in the boot. Virgil is arrested for murder and an impressive array of circumstantial evidence is presented by witnesses as varied as Sydney Greengrass, a retired accountant, who has the unnerving habit of hitching his curiously shaped trousers up way past the nipple line and Poppy Fields, a middle-aged Prostitute fast reaching her sell-by date. Virgil is convinced he has been framed by David Leer, but David Leer seems to have disappeared. Once out on bail, Virgil's jigsaw starts to fall apart . . .

Synopsis

Initially an exercise in what might be achievable with a digital video camera, one actor, one location and no budget. Filmed in a squat in central London, it is a not entirely serious, ten minute insight into one mans self justification of the suicidal game he plays through his over inflated ego and lack of common sense.

Synopsis

Conquest is the story of a North American prairie town: of a young man who believes that despite the town's decline it is still the most wonderful, beautiful place on earth; and of an exotic young woman from the north of England who has travelled the world in search of a place to belong, and despite her reluctance may just have found it. Conquest has seen better days. Most people have moved away and those who have stayed are getting on a bit. Except Pincer Bedier. At 32, he has returned to run the small bank and he is not afraid of spending his bank's money to keep the town alive! The most cynical is Grace Gallagher, a woman in her 70's who has never given up on her dream to live in a real place like Rome. Beautiful and mysterious Daisy MacDonald lands in town when her sports car breaks down. To Daisy, Pincer's town is the end of the earth, the last place she can see herself staying. Her presence begins to perk up the town. Daisy however has found herself with a problem. She's fallen in love with the banker. In this off-beat romantic comedy, almost everyone gets what they want. Grace finds a way to escape. Pincer finds a way for his dreams to live on and Daisy finds the nerve to get off the road.

Synopsis

A film about how you always love the ones that hurt you most. Allie knows she has to break her destructive friendship with Shera. Friday night is just like any other as they hustle money on their council estate, but this could be Allie's night of freedom.