Discoveries from United Kingdom World Cinema

Up and coming portrait artist Alan Street is employed by the owner of a Soho Swingers Club to paint the nude hostesses. Whilst Alan relishes his new job his beautiful girlfriend is less than impressed.

A bassist shows up early for the betrothal ball of a beautiful princess, and whiles away the time having a dip in the river. The princess is doing the same, unbeknownst to the bass player, but when someone steals their clothes, the bass player helps the princess to preserve her dignity by transporting her back to the castle in his bass case, and along the way they discover they have feelings for each other. Based on a short story by Anton Chekhov.

During a rural representation of The Passion of Christ, a young actor and a married costume designer start a romance.

The Armstrong Family - Ian (Whately), Kate (Gonet) and their children Tom and Molly live in a nice country house. But beneath this seemingly normal exterior, Maggie begins to suffer violent abuse at the hands of the normally placid Ian, with dreadful consequences for all the family.

Reflective drama of pioneering nurse, writer and noted statistician Florence Nightingale

In 1965, at the age of 25, Alan Ackland is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a business associate. In 1971, Sylvia Barker, lonely and depressed after a failed marriage and with two young children to bring up alone, seeks a new direction in her life and applies to become a voluntary prison visitor. Several years later their paths cross.

On the day before Mother's Day 1993, Colin and Wendy Parry's lives are torn apart when their youngest son Tim is killed in a terrorist attack by the IRA in Warrington's town centre. The attack shocks ordinary people on both sides of the Irish Sea. Sue McHugh, an unassuming and normally shy Dublin housewife, is deeply affected by the tragedy. Spurred into action by the events in Warrington and the hope that she can make a difference, Sue urges people across Ireland to demonstrate that the killings on all sides must stop. But has Sue underestimated the challenge of brokering peace in a community that has known only conflict? As the grieving Parrys search desperately for answers to their son's senseless killing, they form an alliance with Sue, her husband Arthur, and her Peace '93 movement, travelling to Dublin in a bid to bring about peace and ensure Tim's enduring legacy is one of hope and tolerance. Based on real events.

The manager of a halfway house for female ex-cons takes action when a blackmailer threatens to expose her secret.

Carlos Acosta's first venture directing one of ballet's 19th century classics was eagerly anticipated, as was his own starring role in the production (as Basilio), opposite the Argentinian Royal Ballet principal Marianella Nuñez (Kitri). Still built on Petipa's original choreography, Acosta's clear dramatic structure and vivid stage action gave the ‘boy gets girl despite her father’ story a more convincing air than usual, with Don Quixote's parallel obsession with Dulcinea-Kitri coherently woven into the plot.

Powerfully redemptive and darkly comedic revenge thriller set in the vicious world of stand-up comedy, starring Stephen McCole and Malcolm Shields.

Young couple Jackie and Leo move from North London to a suburban home in the green belt paradise of Southern England. At the birthday party of a neighbor, they soon discover the strict social hierarchies of village life.

An American filmmaker travels to modern day Berlin to make a film based on a real-life incident from 1942 in which 13 Jewish prisoners from a concentration camp were promised freedom if they appeared in a German propaganda film. Unfortunately, the Germans lied. The psychological process undergone by the modern filmmaker while shooting the story provides the basis of this arty and challenging film.

A teenager gets out of reform school and heads to Torquay for a swimming contest, where he meets a pair of young Northern lasses working as hotel chambermaids. However, their fun is interrupted by a gang of Scottish punks who come to cause trouble.

NORTHERN ENGLAND, 1900. A young woman joins the crew of a narrow boat as they transport a dangerous and valuable cargo to the man responsible for her father's death.

A killer has killed once and kidnapped another victim, challenging the investigative and forensic team to work out why. Suddenly everyone's past comes under scrutiny, everyone's version of the truth comes under suspicion. Kay Rousseau, who heads up the crime team, is back at work after the death of her child. Suspicion about her involvement in this death remains, not least in her own husband. Only Matt Costello, Kay's second-in-command and a dedicated, impassioned copper, is loyal to the core.

Actor and writer Mark Gatiss embarks on a chilling journey through European horror cinema, from the silent nightmares of German Expressionism in the 1920s to the Belgian lesbian vampires in the 1970s, from the black-gloved killers of Italian bloody giallo cinema to the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, and finally reveals how Europe's turbulent 20th century forged its ground-breaking horror tradition.

Unsuccessful singing bullfighter Juan arrives in Barcelona to try his luck in a big town. He finally persuades a devious local impresario to book him, but only on the condition that Juan first manages to spend an evening with Olimpia, a "shrewd merciless beauty" who seems effortlessly to collect apartments and Maserati sports cars while leaving a trail of broken hearts behind her. Juan approaches the challenge by pretending to her he is an emissary for a rich count. Written by Jeremy Perkins

Accident-prone Fingers runs a pretty unsuccessful gang. They try and rob wealthy but tricky Billy Gordon - who distrusts banks and fears the Inland Revenue - but he sees Fingers and the boys off. So they decide to kidnap his daughter, only to end up with his wife Lucy. Gordon makes out he couldn't be more pleased, spuring Lucy to take charge of the hopeless bunch of villains.

Jeanine (40) attempts to fix her loneliness by standing beside an A-road in a wedding dress, with a sign saying MARRY ME, but finds a better solution in an unexpected place...

The powerful and inspiring story of Andy Woodward, one of the first footballers to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the national game. After being abused by football scout paedophile Barry Bennell.

A man who has been left for dead by the impostor who takes his place returns to bring him to justice.

Holidaying in Amity, Harry unwittingly stumbles across a washed-up Jaws. Taking the shark under his wing, Harry begins to arrange a comeback tour for the down-and-out star...

The film looks at the places Charles Dickens lived and worked and how he used them in his novels and stories.

A man hypnotizes a young woman into being an opera singer.

Three men at three different times in history come to Mow Top hill in search of sanctuary from their troubles. A Roman soldier, a medieval rebel and a 1970s young man. Somehow they seem linked through an energy within the hill and an axe. Is history doomed to repeat itself or can loving another person free them?

A profile of British painter, Francis Bacon.

Told in the form of a mock documentary in 92 short parts, nineteen million people are left obsessed with birds and flight following a strange occurrence. A documentarian analyses the lives of all the survivors whose surnames begin with FALL to uncover the truth behind the event.

A couple trapped in a cinema are manipulated into becoming unwilling actors in a film being captured by CCTV cameras.

Candid and poignant drama about the comedian Frankie Howerd and the relationship with his long-term, long-suffering manager, and gay partner, Dennis Heymer. Despite his overtly camp persona, Howerd kept his companionship with Heymer under wraps for 35 years, until his death in 1992. Yet through career disaster, social stigma, illegality, numerous infidelities and Howerd's own deep-seated issues about his homosexuality, their love endured.

On the Moon in the year 2021, a former-astronaut-turned-salvager helps a millionaire space industrialist capture a 6000-ton sapphire asteroid, while also assisting a woman in finding her missing miner/prospector brother

A young woman finds herself as the intended victim of a murder plot on a transatlantic flight from London to New York.

Dek, a decent but somewhat dull man, enjoys a happy existence with beloved girlfriend Shirley. They live together with her 12-year-old, Marlene: her daughter by the delinquent Jimmy, who flew the coop years ago and hasn't been heard from since. Dek loves Shirley so much that he proposes to her on national television.

Charts the early years of HandMade Films seen through the eyes of the filmmakers, key personnel, and the man who started it all: former Beatle George Harrison.

A boy gets involved in a bank robbery

A fast-paced thriller about a vital and terrifying subject - the trafficking of children - with the heart-stopping vibrancy, compassion and energy that only the fate of children inspires. This is a story that touches all our lives. And it's happening now.

Stephen Poliakoff's parody of the spy-thriller genre. A Russian diplomat becomes convinced that he is at the centre of a Foreign Office plot.

Set in southern India in the late 1930s, this provocative tale traces the story of three people caught in an inexorable web of forbidden romance and dangerous secrets. After a British spice planter falls in love with his alluring servant, an idealistic young man finds himself torn between his ambitions and his family, his village and his past.

A relaxing bath turns into a nightmare as a clinically depressed Tristan is tormented by his cruelest critic, himself.

The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting these pieces back together and re-tracing the Skylab program back to its very conception reveals the cornerstone of human space exploration.

When their city is rocked by a series of brutal occult murders, veteran detective John Locke and his young partner Terri Keyes are forced to put aside their differences and follow the trail of evidence to a formerly abandoned asylum, where the new owner Dr Unnseine is conducting his own brand of Nazi-inspired "medical research" on the unwilling inmates. One such inmate, the sexy but deadly Annie Dyer, may hold the key to the murders - and to the doorway to Hell itself - if only Locke and Keyes can stay alive long enough to discover what it is.

Sometimes the drama backstage is better than anything on it... Sometimes the drama backstage threatens to destroy everything on it.

An intruder breaks into a modern and luxurious home. He wants it. As he samples the lifestyle his senses are heightened. When the owner of the house returns unexpectedly, the tables are turned, and the intruder finds himself naked and powerless. A film about passion, longing and desire in all its forms.

A Cockney family inherit a ramshackle Devon farm. The rest of the family don't want to leave London but the father insists and off they go, to face the unknown.

A sweet-natured charity worker finds his life turned upside down, when he falls in love with a mysterious woman.

A fascinating documentary focusing on backstage realities of art and business during the British synthesizer band's 1988 American tour.

A bittersweet drama about a street party held in a suburban London square to mark the 1981 Royal Wedding. After two years of the Thatcher administration there is recession and unrest, but the economic boom is just around the corner. Meanwhile, there's the fairytale wedding of Charles and Diana to celebrate.

Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.

A group of ex-university students reunite to perform a Shakespeare play in a quaint English village.

Hailed as the "rightful heir" to "The Wind in the Willows", William Horwood's critically acclaimed sequel comes to magical life in this beautifully animated feature-length classic. Join four of the best-loved characters in children's literature for their heart-warming and hilarious new adventure along the Riverbank, narrated by Academy Award-winner Vanessa Redgrave.

Brit Award-winner Sam Fender goes in search of a musical hero from another era - the late, great, Alan Hull of Lindisfarne, in this one-off BBC Four documentary.

Award-winning filmmaker, Marina Willer (Cartas da Mãe), creates an impressionistic visual essay as she traces her father’s family journey as one of only twelve Jewish families to survive the Nazi occupation of Prague during World War II. Photographed by Academy Award® nominee César Charlone (City of God), the film travels from war-torn Eastern Europe to the color and light of South America and is told through the voice of Willer’s father Alfred (as narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith, Quantum of Solace), who witnessed bureaucratic nightmares, transportations and suicides but survived to build a post-war life as an architect in Brazil. As the world struggles with the current refugee crisis, RED TREES is a timely look at a family besieged by war who finds peace across an ocean.

A shy young man with a passion for opera has his world turned upside down by a con artist who really does have a heart of gold.

Actress and filmmaker Robyn Adams discusses her experiences with autism, gender identity, and learning to embrace her flaws. Also, she's Frankenstein's Monster now.

Sam's search for identity gets interrupted by a mysterious neighbourhood fox. Together they embark on a magical journey to the attic to discover the surprising things they might have in common, and how to celebrate the ways in which they differ.

When Celia Crowson is called up for war service, she hopes for a glamorous job in one of the services, but as a single girl, she is directed into a factory making aircraft parts. Here she meets other girls from all different walks of life and begins a relationship with a young airman.

When two young boys playing in the woods discover a military bunker they unintentionally release the ghost of a World War II auxiliary soldier who mistakenly believes the Nazis have landed.

On April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic embarked on its maiden voyage, sailing from Southampton, England, to New York City. One of the largest and most luxurious passenger liners at the time, the Titanic was also equipped with watertight compartments, which led many to consider the ship unsinkable; an anonymous deckhand famously claimed that “God himself could not sink this ship.” On April 14, however, the ship struck an iceberg, and early the next day it sank. Some 1,500 people perished.

As the UK begins its military engagement in the Falklands, a BBC news journalist attempts to climb up from his working-class roots, at any cost, lying to those around him to get what he wants, only to discover that he is the recipient of a deception far more clever than his own.

The story of martial arts clubs who have created their own city infrastructure after tiring of government initiatives. Responding to the greed and corruption creeping into the other clubs, headed by capitalist-wannabe Moses, The Purifiers battle to maintain the successful system which has rid the city of crime and violence.

Struggling, Alyssa turns to a non-traditional treatment as a cure. It's only stipulation is a strict rule: five turns only.