Gideon's Daughter

A film by Stephen Poliakoff

William Sneath, the character from Friends & Crocodiles reappears to narrate a powerful story of success, loss and redemption. "Here is a man who can't listen, and yet the more he doesn't listen, the more people want him, the more people believe in him. He's the toast of Whitehall, the flavour of flavours."

As the century draws to a close, a new Labour Government comes to power, and the death of Princess Diana heralds a summer of flowers. PR guru Gideon Warner finds himself in perfect step with the times and success seems easy as politicians, businessmen and starlets beat a path to his door.

But just as he reaches the pinnacle of his career, Gideon finds his life spinning out of control. When he should be organising the nation's Millennium celebrations, he is focusing on diffusing the implacable anger of his daughter Natasha. And, rather than shaping the business ambitions of an Italian media tycoon, his time is spent falling in love with the eccentric Stella – a mother grieving for her dead son.

Writer and director Stephen Poliakoff imparts an incredible tenderness matched with a hard-hitting candour to this moving story. The sister film to Friends & Crocodiles, it completes a brilliant panorama of the final decades of the last century.

Friends & Crocodiles

A film by Stephen Poliakoff

The story traces the relationship of a maverick entrepreneur and his colleague over a period of 20 years. It follows the shifting power balance between them as their careers rise and fall through the changing corporate landscape from the beginning of the Thatcher years to the rise of the electronic age and the dot-com bubble.

It is 1981 and Paul Reynolds, a Gatsby-like figure, is the young, wealthy owner of a magnificent country house, a host of great parties, and the patron of eccentrics. He is a collector of interesting people, a visionary with dreams of new urban landscapes, wind power, airships and questions about why the crocodile has survived unchanged for two millennia.

He persuades Lizzie Thomas, a secretary at a local estate agents, to come and work for him as his assistant, to bring some order into his chaotic and hedonistic existence. Once at his country house her world expands – she meets academics, poets, artists, revolutionaries, libertarians and politicians. It is here that she first encounters Sneath, a social chameleon and born survivor, who is always there as events unfold and available to tell the story later.

Paul inspires Lizzie with his enthusiasm and imagination, and frustrates her with his apparent carelessness and destructiveness, which culminates in her calling the police as a great party is turned over by local troublemakers, seemingly with Paul's tacit approval. Paul's Eden seems destined to self-destruct – a terrible row ensues between them and they part company vowing never to speak or see each other again.

Some years later they do meet again, by chance, in London. Following this first awkward encounter their paths are destined to cross again and again as Lizzie, with the help of some of those she met at Paul's house, rises through the changing landscape of corporate Britain and Paul continues to pursue his dreams and create another Eden for himself.

Now that the seemingly unstoppable impetus to change, rationalise and modernise has taken root, technology and everyone is moving on – nothing is permanent or constant. However, eventually one certainty does become apparent and Lizzie and Paul come to accept that despite everything that has happened they were born to work together.

The story is an examination of the nature of personal relationships where work and ideas are more powerful drivers than sexual emotions. In his inimitibale style, Poliakoff combines cinematic panorama with moments of great intimacy as he takes an epic sweep through Britain's recent past and creates an unforgettable story.

Close my eyes

A film by Stephen Poliakoff

Children of a broken marriage, Richard and his estranged sister Natalie meet up after years of being apart. He is a strident, ambitious urban planner, a yuppie with a hectic career and social life. She leads a dull and lonely life, stuck in a dead end office job. During their evening together Natalie becomes upset and looks to Richard for comfort, and during the night they share a moment of affection which strays a little beyond the usual physical closeness of siblings. Richard is surprised by these events and Natalie appears regretful, a little ashamed, and even more confused.

Their lives take them in separate directions once more. While Richard's career abroad fulfils both his professional and social needs, Natalie still feels lost, uncertain and unloved, and Richard's absence in her life becomes a focus for all she does not have and all that she needs.

Some years later Richard returns home, and rather surprisingly, takes a low-paid public sector job. Natalie, whom he has almost forgotten, gets in touch with him again and invites him to meet her new husband Sinclair, a millionaire futurologist – brilliant, very eccentric, kind and generous, but also child-like in his innocence and detachment from the world in which he has become such a success. Richard is clearly stunned by the new life his sister leads, a life which she appears not to have completely embraced. She is however now far more self-confident and begins to lure Richard as he again becomes the object of her affections.

Soon they embark on a forbidden and passionate affair. Richard falls in love with Natalie, and against the backdrop of a glorious British summer, their relationship intensifies as they struggle to accept the aftermath of their actions. Richard becomes gripped with infatuation for his sister and matters come to a head when Natalie's husband Sinclair suspects that his wife is having an affair, little knowing that the lover he is so jealous of is his wife's own brother.

Iris

A film by Richard Eyre

The story of one of the most extraordinary women of the 20th century, the celebrated English author Iris Murdoch. As told by her unlikely soulmate, husband John Bayley, Iris first became known as a brilliant young scholar at Oxford whose boundless spirit dazzled those around her. During a remarkable career as a novelist and philosopher, she continued to prove herself a woman ahead of her time. Even in later life, as age and illness robbed her of her remarkable gifts, nothing could diminish her immense influence or weaken the bond with her devoted husband.

Seen through the eyes of John Bayley, it is a story of an unlikely yet enduring love over forty years. The images portray Murdoch as a vibrant young woman, an academic with great intellect and zest for life, and are contrasted with the novelist's later life, during her slow decline from the effects of Alzheimer's disease which will eventually leave her unable even to perform simple tasks, becoming completely reliant upon her husband.

A moving and tender depiction, based on the two books Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch, and Iris and her Friends by John Bayley.

Code Unknown

Code inconnu, récit incomplet de divers voyages
a film by Michael Haneke

On a busy Paris boulevard, a youth scornfully tosses a crumpled paper bag into the outstretched hands of a beggar woman. This is the bond which, for an instant, links several very different characters. The course of their lives has been determined by an encounter with people they will never even know, and the film explores each life in turn following this chance event.

Anne, an actress who travels from movie to movie. Her boyfriend Georges, a war photographer whose images express great pain and suffering. His father, a farmer in northern France, and younger brother Jean, who contrary to his father's wishes, has no interest in inheriting the farm and has fled to Paris. Amadou, a music teacher in an institute for deaf-mute children, and his family who originate from Africa. And Maria, a Romanian immigrant who has returned to Paris after being deported for begging.

Code Unknown is a complex series of free-standing vignettes, a patchwork of sequences shot in real time. It is a fascinating study of powerful emotional forces, subtle connections and the barriers between people, social classes, and races – and the difficulty of communicating in the modern world.

Carrington

A film by Christopher Hampton

An emotionally complex and moving tale of a lifelong love with unorthodox compromises. Amid the trendy, bohemian scene of London's famed Bloomsbury group, Dora Carrington, a talented young artist, first meets bon vivant and writer Lytton Strachey. The two creative souls are instantly attracted, although Strachey's desires clearly lie elsewhere.

When Lytton moves in with Carrington they both want commitment, but also personal freedom. This ambiguity towards each other is parallel to their ambiguity towards the concept of fame, and soon they grow to realise that there is far more of lasting value in secure domesticity, no matter how loosely defined, than in their behaviourally adventurous artistic peers. The unlikely pair joyously spend colourful days pursuing their arts, and discovering that love works in mysterious ways. But their blissful existence is challenged when Carrington brings home a lover and they suddenly find themselves caught in a bizarre love triangle.

Taken from a biography of Lytton Strachey, Carrington tells the true story of one of the most improbable loves imaginable, evoking with impeccable precision the bohemian world of Kensington art society around the time of the First World War. It is a paradox, an old-fashioned story about an avant-garde arrangement. An intelligent, thoughtful love story that draws us into their lives, and the passions between the characters. The beautiful score by Michael Nyman captures the sentiments of this film perfectly.