United Kingdom

  • Jack Clayton – The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)

    Jack Clayton1981-1990DramaUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Judith Hearn is a middle aged spinster earning a living by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950’s. She falls in love with a shady hotel owner who, in turn, decides to exploit her as far as he can.Read More »

  • Peter Sasdy – Doomwatch AKA Island of the Ghouls (1972)

    1971-1980MysteryPeter SasdySci-FiUnited Kingdom

    The waters surrounding an island become contaminated by chemical dumping, and people who eat fish caught in those waters become deformed and violent.

    A doctor is called in by the authorities to investigate the effects of pollution on the residents of a small island off the Cornish coast. He discovers that pollutants have caused mutations among the island’s populace and that covert MOD activities may be responsible.Read More »

  • Peter Watkins – Culloden (1964)

    Peter Watkins1961-1970ExperimentalUnited KingdomWar

    Quote:
    The 1746 Battle of Culloden, the last land battle fought in the British Isles and the battle that ensured that Scotland was controlled by England. Not only do we see the battle unfold but also the lead-up, the key people involved and the aftermath.Read More »

  • Simon Hesera – A Day at the Beach (1970)

    1961-1970DramaSimon HeseraUnited Kingdom

    Roman Polanski wrote the screenplay for this decidedly offbeat drama. Bernie (Mark Burns) plays a rootless wanderer with a fondness for alcohol and no clear goals in life. Bernie stumbles into a seaside resort community with Winnie (Beatrice Edney), a young girl in leg braces, in tow. As Bernie starts hitting the bottle, his physical and emotional stability starts to crumble, and Winnie begins to worry for his safety, until he finally collapses and Winnie panics, with no one left to look after her. Peter Sellers makes a brief cameo appearance as a gay shopkeeper who sets up a booth to take advantage of the beach traffic. While Polanski originally intended to direct A Day At The Beach, he later turned over the reigns to filmmaker Simon Hesera; it was his first dramatic feature, and his last.Read More »

  • Joanna Hogg – The Souvenir (2019)

    Joanna Hogg2011-2020DramaRomanceUnited Kingdom

    A young film student in the early ’80s becomes romantically involved with a complicated and untrustworthy man.Read More »

  • Lynne Ramsay – Kill the Day (1996)

    Lynne Ramsay1991-2000DramaShort FilmUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    A junkie breaks into a locker and steals a bag, to get money for drugs. Later we see him in prison. He seems like a loner. Guards taunt him and try to make him lose his temper, so that he will be denied parole. When he’s released, he tries to go straight. Interspersed with these scenes are flashbacks of his younger life.Read More »

  • Hugh Burnett – Face to Face: Professor Jung (1959)

    1951-1960DocumentaryHugh BurnettTVUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Carl Gustav Jung was 84 years old when he was interviewed for the BBC series, “Face to Face”, in October 1959. At the time, he was world’s greatest living psychologist, founder of analytical psychology and originator of the concept of the collective unconscious. So his agreeing to be interviewed was an historic coup. Indeed, he was arguably John Freeman’s most famous guest ever to appear in the series. The program itself didn’t follow the usual studio format. A film team flew to Jung’s Zurich home. And as well as seeing the old man walking by the lakeside, viewers were also given a glimpse of the usually shadowy, somewhat enigmatic, John Freeman himself, whose face, despite the program’s title, rarely appeared on the screen. And another difference: of all the 35 “Face to Face” guests, Jung was the only one to refuse to have his portrait drawn by Feliks Topolski for the program’s opening sequence.Read More »

  • Freddie Francis – Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)

    Freddie Francis1961-1970HorrorUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Five strangers board a train and are joined by a mysterious fortune teller who offers to read their Tarot cards. Five separate stories unfold: An architect returns to his ancestral home to find a werewolf out for revenge; a doctor suspects his new wife is a vampire; an intelligent vine takes over a house; a jazz musician plagiarizes music from a voodoo ceremony; a pompous art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.Read More »

  • Alan Clarke – Scum [BBC Version] (1977)

    Alan Clarke1971-1980DramaTVUnited Kingdom

    This is the original version made for the BBC but banned by them and never screened until 15 years later. The BBC said that they banned it because “There was too much incident packed into too short a time and that they doubted the veracity.” So they thought it was pure fiction. But they also said that it “looked too much like a documentary.”

    A brutal depiction of life in the borstal system where order is maintained through violence and intimidation. Carlin’s journey up the pecking order from new boy to ‘Daddy’ earns him the respect of inmates and officers alike.Read More »

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