Not being one's to rest on our laurels (can be very uncomfortable) we are constantly developing new projects and talent here at Zanzibar Films. Below are a list of films currently at various stages of development that we hope to bring to the Big Screen very soon.
While each film is very diverse in story and style, one thing they all have in common is the drive and imagination of a very talented bunch of film-makers, all sharing the Zanzibar Films dream of entertaining, enthralling, and engaging audiences all over the world.
TERMINUS
- (DRAMA FEATURE)'Terminus' is a thriller-on-the-road set in Spain against the back-drop of immigration from Africa into Spain. Three disparate characters are thrown together on a ferry crossing from Tangiers to Andalusia. At the other end there are Traffickers and Police trying to catch Daniel, the illegal among them. It is down to the elderly Mohamed and the hitch-hiker Pilar as to whether he will find sanctuary. Down the line, they find an ally in a committed policewoman, but Daniel's persecutors are never too far behind the police.
The story offers challenging roles to two leading Spanish actresses, in addition to the two strong male lead roles.
Zanzibar have teamed up with writer / director Johnny Gogan's Bandit Films for the development of this ambitious European feature. The project has been development financed by Media Plus and The Irish Film Board. Experienced screen-writer Joe O'Byrne (Pete's Meteor and Korea) is collaborating on the script.
Following on Gogan's award-winning low-budget features 'The Last Bus Home' and 'Mapmaker', 'Terminus' is a contemporary European story set in Spain to be shot in English and in Spanish.
Zanzibar are in the process of identifying suitable European partners for the project and plan to shoot in early 2004.
DETAILS : Director: Johnny Gogan. Writer: Johnny Gogan and Joe O'Byrne. Producer: Edwina Forkin. Co-Producer UK: Christine Alderson - Ipso Facto Films.
SOULED
OUT - (DRAMA FEATURE)
It's 1974, a world of unrest, beer at fifteen pence a pint, and flares
wide enough to sweep the pavements.
Joe and Russ are a couple of working class young men in the North of England, stuck in a rut of going-nowhere jobs punctuated by Saturdays drinking until they fall down at the local Mecca. Until, news filters through of something happening across in Wigan where The Casino, a huge, pre-war dancehall is drawing people by the hundreds for the Saturday all-night soul dances.
Lured
by the prospect of great music, illicit chemicals and, for Joe, the chance
to get closer to the divine Jane, the lads decide to give the place a
whirl. 'Souled Out' is a story of friendship at a time when it burns the
brightest and it means the most. " The longest journeys begin with
a single step. "
DETAILS : Director: Shimmy Marcus.
Writers: Jeff Williams and Shimmy Marcus. Producer: Christine
Alderson - Ipso Facto Films. Co-Producer: Edwina Forkin.
LAMPING
- (CONTEMPORARY DRAMA FEATURE)When three lifelong friends are finally forced to grow up does it also mean they have to grow apart. A story about love, life and rabbits.
DETAILS : Director / Writer : Audrey O'Reilly. Producers: Tamara Anghie & Edwina Forkin. Co-Producer UK: Christine Alderson - Ipso Facto Films.
HONOR
BRIGHT - (PERIOD DRAMA FEATURE)Honor Bright is a young prostitute working in a brothel in Monto - the red light district of 1920's Dublin. It's a grim place frequently raided by the English 'Black and Tans' in search of members of the IRA.
She hates her job but is driven by the need to earn enough money to buy a home for her five year old, Michael and prevent the Legion of Mary (nuns) taking him into their care.
She befriends a radical priest while at the same time working undercover for the IRA. In the end she has to salvage her own humanity.
DETAILS : Writers: Kirsten Sheridan and Audrey O'Reilly. Producer: Edwina Forkin. Co-Producer UK: Christine Alderson - Ipso Facto Films.
CLAN
- (DRAMA FEATURE)Will be updated shortly.
DETAILS : Director & Writer: Graham Cantwell. Producer: Tamara Anghie.
TRIP
SWITCH - (CONTEMPORARY THRILLER FEATURE)Noaksie (19), Suzy (19), Jimminy (18) and Figaro (20) are childhood friends who have been through the mill together. It’s a year since Figaro and Suzy were boyfriend and girlfriend – a relationship which caused a severe rift between Noaksie (who has always loved Suzy) and Figaro, but now that the Summer’s here – it’s time to let bygones be bygones, and head off to the South of France for three months of fun and sun.
The trip is really about healing the rift – so, the four friends concentrate on their dream of finding work on the boats in Antibes, rather than dwelling on their recent past. However, straight away they realize that finding work on the boats will not be as easy as they had presumed. If they can’t find work they won’t be able to stay in France, and it’s while under this financial pressure that they allow themselves to be taken in by the mercurial Molby (35), a French drifter.
What ensues is the ultimate wake-up call for the four friends!
Main Tension is a "rite of passage" story with a sting in the tail, an emotional tour de force which keeps the audience guessing from frame one. Told in flash-back, it is a sharp, sometimes funny, often shocking take on the universal theme of growing up too fast, too soon.
Think: I Know What You Did Last Summer meets Really Bad Things.
Tag Line: "Friends Forever… Until Forever Came."
DETAILS : Director: Pearse Lehane. Producer: Edwina Forkin. Co-Producer UK: Christine Alderson - Ipso Facto Films.
LINGLING
- (SURREAL CONTEMPORARY DRUG DRAMA FEATURE)A uniquely original surreal thriller set in London, India, and Russia.
DETAILS : Director: Paddy Jolley. Producer: Edwina Forkin. Co-Producer UK: Christine Alderson - Ipso Facto Films.
CHILL
- (ANIMATED FEATURE)Chill is a visual journey through the seven energies of the human spirit.
DETAILS : Writer / Director: Cashel Horgan. Producer: Edwina Forkin.
LAVENDER
- (CONTEMPORARY DRAMA FEATURE)Young Daf lives in Swansea with his grandad because his dad Dave is in Prison, ostensibly for killing Daf's mum. When Dave escapes to Ireland, Daf goes with him and when Dave meets and falls in love with the beauiful Estelle, the stage is set for the revelation of a secret, a secret that lies in the hands of Estelle's estranged husband Sean, who is also Dave's lawyer.
DETAILS : Writer / Director: Pip Broughtman. Producers: Elizabeth Hemlock Morgan and Edwina Forkin.
THE
MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER - (HALF HOUR ANIMATION SPECIAL)
This - the oldest, darkest, most mysterious of the Hans Christian Anderson
tales - is told by the storks who journey every year from the warmth of
Egypt to the cold marshlands of Jutland. There an Egyptian princess once
flew, in the guise of a swan and in search of the northern marshflower,
which was the only hope for her dying father.
Only the Storks witnessed the Marsh King - the ancient and evil Deity
who once ruled the marshlands - drag the princess down. And only the Storks
witnessed the birth of the Princess' and the Marsh King's daughter, Thumbelina-like,
in the Marshflower.
This is, above all, a story of the fragmented self. The Marsh King's Daughter
has her mother’s beauty and her father’s cruelty by day, but
her father’s monstrous looks and her mother’s gentleness by
night.
In the course of her story – which carries the audience on a journey
through the European dreamtime that is the heartland of fairytale –
the Marsh King's daughter finally reconciles her two natures and becomes
capable of love and redemption, with the help of the Storks.
Moving Still's Bafta winning animation team are developing a visual style,
based on the classic, early twentieth century designs of Erte, that captures
the timelessness of Fairytale in a way that meets the practical needs
of low budget animation production.
The timelessness and haunting beauty of the imagery is echoed in the dialogue
driven script, by childrens writer and poet Catherine Anne Cullen, who,
you slowly realise, is writing in verse - and getting away with it!
The themes of the Marsh King's Daughter have been haunting the European
psyche for a thousand years. This is a production to do them justice.
DETAILS : Director: Tim Fernee.
Writer: Catherine Anne Cullen. Producer: Edwina Forkin.
CLICK
HERE or
on pic to view a pop-up gallery.
BARDO
- (CONTEMPORARY ANIMATION FEATURE)
The idea behind BARDO is to bring to the screen the hitherto unknown
secrets contained within the Tibetan Book of the Dead, an ancient manuscript
which describes the journey of the consciousness through death, transformation
and awakening. This journey also closely resembles the more common experience
of falling asleep, dreaming, and awakening.
The gap between one life and the next is referred to in Buddhism as the BARDO literally meaning 'intermediate state'. The film will be an allegory of the bardo, using state of the art 70mm landscape photography to symbolise the external 'real world' of this life and the next, and cutting edge abstract computer animation & FX to represent the dream-like internal experiences of mind as it journeys between these worlds.
DETAILS : Director: Glen Marshall.
Writer: Glen Marshall. Producers: Edwina Forkin and Hugh
McGrory
Music: Peter Gabriel and Roger Doyle
The investigator falling in love with the suspect is given a novel twist in INSIDER a stylish contemporary thriller set in the world of high finance and exploring the theme of personal morality.
DETAILS : Director: Colette Cullen. Writer: Colette Cullen. Producer: Edwina Forkin.
