CATCHING UP WITH ALEX

CATCHING UP WITH ALEX is a feature length documentary capturing the preparation and successful 400km non-stop run made by ultra runner Alexandra Panayotou in Girona in June 2014.

HEADLINE

Headline is the true story of an all black skinhead/ska band that very nearly found fame during the turmoil of the early 1980’s.

Margaret Thatcher was dividing the nation along social as well as geographical lines, just as the populace as a whole was facing up to the reality that was modern multicultural Britain. It was a time of true social upheaval and the country’s youth were politicized as never before.

Our story follows the band as they tour this divided nation, first with Two-Tone jesters, Bad Manners and then punk legends The Stranglers. It watches their meteoric rise, from their first rehearsal through their signing by Richard Branson himself and onto their dramatic implosion, when the edition of ‘Top of The Pops’ on which they were scheduled to perform is cancelled, due to a strike by the Musicians Union.

It uses the aesthetic and energy of the time to plug straight into the zeitgeist of the present, serving as a window of one the most tumultuous periods of modern history (both socially and artistically) and as a timeless parable on the dangers of searching for fame.

And it is a truly unique story, one with depth, global appeal, and energy to burn

CAST & CREW:

Writer: Greg Fay
Director: Greg Fay
Cast: to be announced

FEATURE

THE CHINE

Tom and Emma buy a house on a tranquil island only to discover its coastline harbours a secret threat. Clues lie in the deep chine within the cliffs below and with their neighbour Noah, a lone artist, who has an intriguing family history.

As isolation slowly takes its toll, Tom's paranoia about Emma's fidelity grows and, for her, loneliness descends. Following the unexplained death of Tom's brother, Johnny, and Tom's subsequent absence, Emma seeks solace in Noah, a decision that leaves them with a terrifying legacy.

CAST & CREW:

Writer: Geraldine Geraghty
Director: Geraldine Geraghty
Cast: to be announced

FEATURE

THIS IS THE PUNISHMENT. THIS IS THE REWARD

SYNOPSIS

A documentary filmmaker investigates a clandestine scientific research program she believes to have a military goal, but discovers its purpose to be even more ominous.

CAST & CREW:

Writer: Elizabeth Eves
Director: Elizabeth Eves
Cast: to be announced

SHORT

UNFINISHED

Frank has been a gardener most of his life. When his wife dies and work became scarce he finds a job tending a graveyard. The job comes with a cottage and, grim as it seems, it feels as good a place as any to spend his remaining years, away from real life. His friend and co-worker Ike, and even his boss the local vicar, can't seem to shake him out of his depression.

One night, however, he has some visitors who insist he help them with almost impossible tasks. Through helping them solve their problems, his zest for life gradually returns and he finally leaves the graveyard to resume life as a gardener.

CAST & CREW:

Writer: Geraldine Geraghty
Director: Geraldine Geraghty
Cast: to be announced

SHORT

THE INFINITY POOL

Set in a small seaside town on the coastline of Great Britain this film explores what happens when a brother and sister are suddenly and tragically left alone in the world to defend for themselves and how they deal with the daily struggles of life without their parents and the constant fear of being found out and separated by the authorities and placed into the ‘care system’.

While surviving on their own they stumble upon a chaotic portal to an infinity of parallel worlds and in one world in particular they are given a second chance to regain the life they thought they had lost forever and the security they had once felt. But this new world is not the same as the one they left behind, this new world has its own rules and they must decide what rules they want to live by.

CAST & CREW:

Writer: Richard Heslop
Director: Richard Heslop
Cast: to be announced

FEATURE

RAFT OF THE MEDUSA

We are delighted to announce the production of an ambitious ‘film for radio’ in memory of Derek Jarman. Raft of The Medusa will be a new 45-minute radio play by Simon Armitage for BBC Radio 4, inspired by one of Jarman’s unrealised projects. The play will also form the soundtrack to a new film by director Richard Heslop, who worked as a cinematographer on a number of films with Derek Jarman.

The project is a collaboration between Cast Iron, Film London, Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network, BloodSugar Films and BBC Radio 4, and is supported by Arts Council England.

In his notebooks Jarman planned, but never made, a film about a famous painting by the French Romantic artist Theodore Géricault. Based on true events, ‘The Raft of the Medusa’ (1818) is a shocking depiction of isolation and hopelessness: a makeshift raft weighed down with corpses, a desperate group of survivors attempt (in vain) to gain the attention of a passing ship. For Jarman, this harrowing artwork was rich with metaphorical potential: it spoke of the abandonment and despair caused when AIDS struck the gay community, and which was met with terrible, political neglect. It symbolised the struggle to produce experimental work without the funding or recognition of the mainstream film industry.

Raft continues a conversation, started by Jarman, about the relationship between visual art, cinema and radio, and the idea (which he explored in ‘Caravaggio’) that a historical painting can be infused with contemporary political urgency.

The first radio broadcast and simultaneous screening of the film will be on BBC Radio 4 and the Radio 4 website on 11th April 2015.

The ‘film for radio’ will tour to UK and international venues.

CAST & CREW:

Writer: Simon Armitage
Director: Richard Heslop

FRANK

FIREFLIES

FIREFLIES is a 20-min drama written and directed by Anastasia Kirillova and Produced by Ciska Faulkner (35mm. Production company: Bonnie Parker TV in association with Gorgeous Enterprises – London, UK)

Synopsis: A modern-day rites of passage tale of Agnes, a 12 year-old girl, whose journey into the woods one evening unexpectedly leads her to discover the uncertain world of adolescent relationships. Her experiences unravel in the midst of nocturnal nature and all it’s magical ambiguity. Following a longed for invitation by Victor, the object of her innocent desire, she is forced to make the small, yet unforgettable, steps towards intimacy and womanhood.

Cast: Emily Knight, Oliver Paxton, Angharad Buxton Jones, Cole Edwards, Max Fowler, Jade Mouilla
Cinematographer: Magni Agustsson
Composer: Dan Berridge
Production Designer: Marketa Korinkova
Editors: Allison Carter & Hazel Baillie
Sound Designer: Steve Bond

VALERIE JUNE

NEW BUILD

Moira Houlihan - Producer

Moira Houlihan has worked in the film industry for over 20 years. She started her career at George Harrison’s HandMade Films and went on to work for Dennis Davidson Associates PR Agency before joining the highly successful CiBy Sales in 1992 as International Publicity Manager.

During her time at CiBy Sales the company received numerous awards including the prestigious Palme d’Or Award for The Piano, Underground, Secrets and Lies and Taste of Cherry. They received Academy Awards for The Piano and All About My Mother.

Moira then moved into film production, working as a freelance unit publicist on independent films and with studios such as Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Feature films include Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2, Rocknrolla, Underworld 1 and 3, Jack the Giant Slayer, Cloud Atlas, Cemetery Junction and The Devil’s Double.

She has worked with some of the most acclaimed directors in the industry including Mike Leigh, Pedro Almodovar, David Lynch, Guillermo Del Toro, Guy Ritchie, Bryan Singer and Lee Tamahori.

Ciska Faulkner - Producer

Ciska started her career in the early 1990’s producing music videos for Oil Factory Films, the seminal London music video production company of the time.

In 1993 she produced her first 16mm short film, ‘The Middle Ground’, a short drama about a young teenager dealing with the death of his father, written and directed by Joe Wright for the Fuji Film Scholarship Award.

In 1997 she line produced Richard Helsop’s much heralded short film ‘I Was Born to Love You’ for the ‘Queen: Made in Heaven’ films commissioned by the band Queen. The film was one of a compilation co-produced by the British Film Institute and Janine Marmot at Hot Property Films. Nine short films accompany tracks from Queen’s final album, ‘ Made in Heaven’, completed shortly after the passing of Freddie Mercury. All the films were originally screened at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and Venice and Berlin Film Festivals; and then released on DVD.

Ciska moved in to television production in 1999 where she produced the Episode 1 & 2 of cult TV comedy series ‘Honky Sausages’ for @Radical Media, created and directed by John McFarlane, written by Dean Cavanagh and screened on BBC Play UK.

In 2000 she produced ‘Graceful Descent’, a dark, cynical comedy about a young woman addicted to therapy starring Katie Carr and Ian Puleston Davies. The film was directed by Guy Hocking and Adam Thorpe for Tortola Films.

In 2001 she collaborated with Pragmatic Pictures as co-producer of the cult horror feature film ‘Cradle of Fear’ directed by Alex Chandon.

In 2005 she produced ten ‘Live 8 Short Films’ commissioned by Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis. These were written and directed by a variety of directors, all shot over 6 weeks, in Kenya. The films were screened live at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park on 2 July 2005 and seen by 3 billion viewers as they were broadcast worldwide.

In 2006 she produced the promotional film ‘Director’, directed by Chris Palmer, for The Times/BFI London Film Festival. The film was screened throughout the 50th, 51st and 52nd London Film Festival.

Most recently she produced the 35mm short film ‘Fireflies’ with innovative young director Anastasia Kirillova. It was admitted to the Berlinale Film Cloud 2012 and screened at the London Short Film Festival 2013.

She set up I Like Films, Me with director Richard Heslop and producer Philip Shotton in 2010 to produce the micro-budget feature film ‘FRANK’ in association with the North East regional screen agency, Northern Film & Media. The film was completed in May 2012 and screened at the Cambridge Film Festival and Raindance in 2012. It was also nominated at the British Independent Film Awards for the Raindance award in the same year.

Over the last fifteen years she has also worked primarily at Gorgeous Enterprises, as well as Partizan, RSA, Blink and @Radical Media, as a senior advertising producer of TV commercials.

Directors she has worked with include: Frank Budgen, Chris Palmer, Dougal Wilson, Lance Accord, Tom Carty, Benito Montorio, John McFarlane, Lenny Dorfmann, Rik Le Moine, Steve Miller, Richard Heslop, Sophie Muller, Jamie Thraves, Joe Wright, Adam Smith, Scott Lyon, Cassius Coleman, Nick Wood, Alex Chandon, Anastasia Kirillova, Dawn Shadforth, Peter Thwaites, Vince Squibb and John Hillcoat.

Ciska has produced predominantly in the UK and the US but also in many other international locations.

Ciska is currently producing the Raft of The Medusa visuals for the ’45 minute film for radio’ written by Simon Armitage. The project is a collaboration between Cast Iron, Film London, Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network, BloodSugar Films and BBC Radio 4, and is supported by Arts Council England.

The first radio broadcast and simultaneous screening of the film will be on BBC Radio 4 and the Radio 4 website on 11th April 2015. The ‘film for radio’ will tour to UK and international venues.

Richard Heslop - Director

A visionary director whose work is haunting, exciting and visually compelling, Richard Heslop is a British director with a body of work that covers not only film but television, commercials and music videos often shooting and editing his own work. The world’s leading film festivals have selected his film work.

Heslop first came into the film spotlight with his melancholic graduation film, from Central St Martins, THE CHILD AND THE SAW which went on to win first prize at the Huesca Film festival in Spain, received a Special Mention at Toronto and was screened in the Berlin Panorama and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

One of his first shorts, PROCAR, made in collaboration with Daniel Landin and Herbert Verhey, was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and released as part of a compilation of British short films called FAT OF THE LAND which also included an early Tilda Swinton short The Sluggard by Joy Perino.

Richard later worked with the legendary British filmmaker Derek Jarman as cameraman on the acclaimed features THE GARDEN and THE LAST OF ENGLAND.

The talented director went on to win prestigious awards at several major film festivals including Cannes where he won the Canal+ Award for Best Short Film in the Critics’ Week at Cannes for his short FLOATING. His short film I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU which he directed for the BFI and Hot Property as one of nine films accompanying tracks from Queen’s uplifting final album, MADE IN HEAVEN, was originally shown at the 1996 Cannes film Festival and was invited to open the Venice Film Festival as well as many other festivals throughout the world.

As well as his films, Heslop is also known for the videos he has produced for artists including Queen, The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, Happy Mondays to name just a few, as well as programs on Channel 4 and the BBC.

Richard has also created photomontages that have exhibited in The London Gallery, working with one of the UK’s most well renowned contemporary artists, Grayson Perry.

It was Richard’s video work that led him to Partizan where he continued producing commercials and videos before moving on to join BloodSugar Films with long time collaborator and producer Ciska Faulkner.

In 2012 he competed his feature film FRANK, which screened at Raindance and the Cambridge Film Festival, amongst others. Frank was nominated for a BIFA in 2012 as well as featured, with FLOATING, in a weekend of special screenings of Richard’s work at the ICA, in September 2013.

In 2013 he directed music video Valerie June’s ‘Wanna Be on Your Mind’ for Sunday Best Recordings.

In 2014 he directed the 7 minute short film/music video ‘Pour It On’ for New Build featuring performance artist Rachel Gomme for Sunday Best Recordings.

New York Times Blog
YouTube

Richard is currently working on ‘RAFT OF THE MEDUSA’ the production of an ambitious 45 minute ‘film for radio’ in memory of Derek Jarman.

Wikipedia page
Richard Heslop Website
IMDb page
Vimeo account