UK Film Council.
1) Vera Drake
Publication Date
2005
Language
English
Description
Vera Drake tells of a woman in 1950s England who is devoted to caring for her family, but secretly aids women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies. When the authorities find her out, Vera's world and family life rapidly unravel.
2) Venus
Publication Date
2007
Language
English
Description
Maurice and Ian are successful, but aging actors. The two are close friends whose conversation generally revolves around theatrical shop talk and the infirmities of other aging actors. Ian is fearful that death is right around the corner, so he agrees to let his niece's daughter, Jessie, move in to his flat to care for him. Jessie is a modern woman in her early twenties. She turns out to be a nightmare for Ian, especially since she is a hard-drinking,...
Publication Date
2012, c2011
Language
English
Description
Hester Collyer is the wife of an upper-class judge and a free spirit trapped in a passionless marriage. Her encounter with Freddie Page, a troubled former Royal air force pilot, throws her life in turmoil, as their erotic relationship leaves her emotionally stranded and physically isolated.
Publication Date
2007
Language
English
Description
In April 1994 the airplane of the Hutu President of Rwanda crashes and the Hutu militias slaughter the Tutsi population. In the Ecole Technique Officielle, Christopher, a Catholic priest and Joe Connor, an idealistic English teacher give sanctuary to twenty-five hundred Rwandans survivors in the school, which is under the protection of the UN Belgian force and under siege from the Hutu militia. When the Tutsi refugees are abandoned by the UN, they...
5) Snow cake
Publication Date
c2007
Language
English
Description
Recently released from prison, Alex offers a ride to a hitchhiker, only to have her killed instantly when they are involved in a brutal car accident. Alex then approaches the girl's mother, and the events that unfold dramatically change both his life and those of others around him.
Publication Date
2007
Language
English
Description
Chronicles Idi Amin's rise and fall. Amin's despotic reign of terror is viewed through the eyes of Nicholas Garrigan, a Scottish doctor who arrives in Uganda in the early 1970s to serve as Amin's personal physician. His perspective as an outsider causes him to be initially impressed by Amin's calculated rise to power and he grows increasingly monstrous. A pointed examination of how independent Uganda (a British colony until 1962) became a breeding...
Publication Date
c2011
Language
English
Description
In Kenya in 1953 there was a violent uprising against British colonial rule led by the Mau Mau, who were mainly from the Kikuyu tribe. Thousands were killed, and thousands imprisoned, although the conflict did eventually lead to independence for Kenya. Based on a true story, this tells the tale of how 84-year-old Kenyan villager and ex-Mau Mau freedom fighter Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the...
Publication Date
2007
Language
English
Description
School is out for the summer and twelve-year-old Shaun is about to find a dangerous new group of friends. Having lost his father in the Fakland War, life has been lonely in this grim coastal town in northern England. But when Shaun meets the local skinheads, their companionship, and even their violence, appeal to Shaun's hurt and rage. Combo is an older volatile skinhead whom Shaun finds to be like a big brother and under his leadership, the gang...
9) Sylvia
Publication Date
[2004]
Language
English
Description
Born in Boston, MA, in 1932, Sylvia Plath developed a talent as a writer and published her first poem when she was eight years old. That same year, Plath was forced to confront the unexpected death of her father. In 1950, she began studying at Smith College on a literary scholarship. In 1955, she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship to study in England at Cambridge. There, Plath met Ted Hughes, a respected author. The two fell in love, and married...
10) Miss Potter
Publication Date
2007
Language
English
Description
In an effort to give their younger brother, Norman a project to keep him busy now that he has joined the family publishing house, the older Warne brothers agree to publish Miss Beatrix Potter's first children's book. They don't expect the book to sell well, but they need to keep Norman busy. As a single woman living in Edwardian London, Beatrix suspects this endeavor may provide her with a small measure of freedom. But she also has very specific ideas...
Publication Date
[2005]
Language
English
Description
In the 1930s, the peaceful life of two aging sisters is shattered when they take in a young Polish violinist who they find injured after having been washed ashore near their coastal English home. Their town is suspicious of any visitors and things get worse when he befriends a Russian woman who is visiting the town.
13) The proposition
Publication Date
2006
Language
English
Description
Charlie Burns is presented with an impossible proposition by local law enforcement. The only way for him to save his younger brother from the gallows is to dismiss his moral judgment and kill his psychotic older brother within nine days.
14) Becoming Jane
Publication Date
[2008]
Language
English
Description
The young Jane Austen wishes to be a writer. Her mother thinks otherwise. Although she is offered many marriage proposals she accepts none until the mischevious Thomas Lefroy shows up and turns her world around. At first she finds him ignorant and self centered but as she gets to know him, they start to flirt and eventually fall in love. Thomas' relatives disagree with the match and threaten to disinherit him if he marries her. Jane's mother also...
Publication Date
c2006
Language
English
Description
Alex Rider has been trained since birth for a career as a spy. It's not until his beloved uncle, Ian Rider, dies that Alex learns of his intended purpose in life. At just 14, Alex is not sure he can do all that is required of a super spy. Without much choice he is taken under the wing of Britain's secret intelligence service. The Special Operations Division of the MI6 sends Alex on a mission which could save or cost millions their lives. As Alex embarks...
16) Valiant
Series
Publication Date
[2005]
Language
English
Description
Valiant and his feathered friends take to the sky as they work their way into the Royal Air Force during World War II. Together this rag-tag squadron of carrier pigeons engages in aerial adventures at a spitfire pace. From the first bumbling day of basic training through the final feather-raising mission, the flock of friends swoop their way toward victory. Against the odds and an evil German falcon, Valiant is called upon for a very important assignment....
17) Happy-go-lucky
Publication Date
2009
Language
English
Description
Poppy is a life-loving and irrepressibly cheerful primary school teacher. She is thirty years old, single, and infinitely optimistic and accepting. She lives with her best friend and flatmate Zoe in London. She is tested by a repressed driving instructor with anger problems, and, in turn, she decides to test him. She has exciting flamenco lessons, an encounter with a homeless man, an argument with her pregnant sister, and a love-affair with the social...
Publication Date
[2005]
Language
English
Description
During the 1930's, the world of the British uppercrust society is one of nightclubs, dancing, jazz and speed. Their lives revolve around an endless series of parties and pleasure seeking - including motorcars, jazz bands, gossip journalism, drugs, gramophones ... Inevitably, however, the frantic pace of living begins to take its toll and one by one they begin to crash and burn in the search for newer and faster sensations.
19) Tyrannosaur
Language
English
Formats
Description
TYRANNOSAUR follows the story of two lonely, damaged people brought together by circumstance. Joseph (Peter Mullan) is an unemployed widower, drinker, and a man crippled by his own volatile temperament and furious anger. Hannah (Olivia Colman) is a Christian worker at a charity shop, a respectable woman who appears wholesome and happy. When the pair is brought together, Hannah appears as Joseph’s potential savior, someone who can temper his fury...
20) Enduring love
Publication Date
2005
Language
English
Description
A psychological thriller about a group of unsuspecting men whose lives are changed forever after they attempt to rescue the passenger of a runaway hot air balloon.