FILMS | ukfilmco

Completed Feature Films

BOY MEETS GIRL

Director: Ray Brady

Screenwriter: Ray Brady and Jim Crosbie

Genre: Horror

"There are so many things in this deeply unusual film's favour that enable it to be so effective. The direction, despite an obvious shoestring budget, manages to be stylish and taut, using camera trickery and plot-contextual switching between film and video to keep things looking lively. The acting is surprisingly strong, considering the relative obscurity of the cast members. Danielle Sanderson (sadly never seen in anything else) is nothing short of unforgettable, playing her unstable character with a disarming mix of light and dark. One minute she's soothing, sensual, almost maternal and the next she's positively fearsome, spewing forth verbal bile with the maniacal savagery. It would be so easy for some of her dialogue to be delivered with a large side order of ham, but Sanderson makes her character believable through the intensity of her performance. I *really* wish she'd made other films. It's tragic to think of such an incredible talent being wasted.

Of course, what REALLY makes this movie is the razor-sharp script, unpredictable and surprisingly complexed as it is. On top of its constant heartfelt assaults on the (at the time very hot) topic of violence in media, it relishes in playing with your mind and your personal politics, when it comes to morality. The lines between good and evil, right and wrong, continually shift (along with the viewer's sympathies). It's almost disorientating, the way the characterisations manipulate perceptions of what's going on and, by the time the plot reaches its ferociously visceral climax, the impact is made all the greater, because you're being made to THINK about what's going on instead of just watching it through zombified, desensitised eyes.

"Boy Meets Girl" is one of the more genuinely disturbing films I've seen. Obviously being creeped out by the movies is a very subjective, personal thing but, like I say, this one definitely did it for me. The closest comparisons I could make would be to place it in a similar category to "Man Bites Dog" or "Audition". Fiercely original, darkly comic at times but ultimately very harrowing indeed."

This film was in official Competition at Edinburgh, Sitges, Fantasporto in 1994 and selected for the Viennale and also selected to screen at Stockholm and the NatFilm Festival Copenhagen in 1995.

EGRESSION

Director/Producer: Ray Brady

Screenwriter: Des Brady

Genre: Drama

Attempting to escape the past through drugs and sex, three friends charge headlong

towards their inescapable fates. A story of savage passions, tragic mistakes, and redemption.

Set on the outskirts of London society, independently produced on a very low-budget over a two year period, this unflinching drama portrays three friends and their various addictions in an account of contemporary urban mores. Portraying casual violence and sex as everyday occurrences to Britain's underclasses, the film takes an even darker turn when one of the lead characters commits suicide leaving the other two with the self-recriminations, grief, and guilt that inevitably follow. Unapologetically European in outlook and aesthetics the film is aimed unashamedly at the Art-house market. In the vein of Jacques Audiard, the Dardenne brothers, or harking even further back to the cannon of the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, this elliptical piece demands cerebral interaction from the audience. English films Egression could be compared to are: Gary Oldman's 'Nil by Mouth', Mike Leigh's 'Naked', Andrea Arnold's 'Red Road' or 'Fish Tank', Steve McQueen's 'Hunger', the body of work of Ken Loach.