Synopsis Research

Bullet Boy

BULLET BOY tells the story of two brothers growing up in one of London's most volatile neighbourhoods, where a minor street clash escalates into a cycle of violence that has tragic repercussions. A powerful and moving tale of young men on the edge, it reflects an emerging modern reality within Britain's inner cities.
The film explores themes of friendship, rivalry and revenge amid a generation of boys to whom guns have become a fact of life. When 18 year old Ricky is released from a Youth Offenders Institute he desperately wants to avoid falling back into his criminal past. However, his claustrophobic world and the huge pressure to conform proves inescapable. Ricky almost immediately gets caught up in a road rage incident involving his best friend, Wisdom, and a local rival - all for the sake of a broken wing-mirror.
This minor confrontation quickly develops into a series of tit for tat reprisals that spiral out of control. Ricky's 12 year old brother Curtis is battling his own pressures and is caught between this world and his mum Beverley's competing aspirations for him. Ricky is at a turning point - his mum and girlfriend Shea are struggling to help him stay out of trouble but he owes a debt of allegiance to Wisdom who has already crossed that line. It seems inevitable Ricky will be dragged down with him, but it's also only a matter of time before Curtis - in thrall to the allure of his older brother - will be drawn in too.
Bullet Boy inhabits a volatile world where friendships and loyalty are tested to the extreme, the interchange of fate and circumstance seems as casual as a coin toss, and the slightest flare of emotions can set off a devastating ripple of events. The film takes these two boys, their friends, families and enemies through a heady and emotional three days as one gun changes hands leaving in its wake a trail of destruction.

My Brother the Devil

Mo (Fady Elsayed) is a 14-year-old student living with his Egyptian family on a Hackney housing estate. He shares a bedroom with his charismatic older brother Rashid (James Floyd), and idolises him. Rashid runs with a local gang, dabbles in drug dealing, sneaks out to see his girlfriend and surreptitiously slips money into his mother’s purse, though he wants something better than this for Mo, encouraging his younger brother’s college aspirations. However, Mo is keen to play the tough guy, and finds it hard to escape the lure of gang life just at a point when Rashid is navigating a necessary escape from it. When Mo discovers secrets Rashid is keeping, the worlds of both boys are about to be turned upside down. Featuring breakout performances from a terrific young cast, Sally El Hosaini’s vibrant and original debut feature skillfully dabbles with genre conventions and defies expectations.

This is England

British filmmaker Shane Meadows looks back at his own youth in this semi-autobiographical comedy drama that examines skinhead culture in the U.K. It's the summer of 1983, and Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is a 12-year-old boy edging into adolescence without a father, his dad having lost his life the year before in the Falkland Islands War. A gang of skinheads -- tough guys in their teens and early twenties who shave their heads, wear Ben Sherman polo shirts, and Dr. Martens boots, and listen to ska music -- walk the streets in Shaun's neighborhood, and one day they start picking on him. Shaun, however, shows he can give as good as he gets, and gang leader Woody (Joe Gilgun) takes a liking to the boy. Woody takes Shaun under his wing, and he starts hanging out with the skins, getting advice on dressing right from Woody's girlfriend, Lol (Vicky McClure), and learning about Jamaican music from West Indian skinhead Milky (Andrew Shim). However, the gang begins to change when Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison and returns to the neighborhood; like many skinheads, Combo has been recruited by the National Front, an openly racist right-wing political party, and soon the gang begins to fracture, with Combo taking one faction toward violence and petty crime against blacks, Indians, and Pakistanis, while Woody and his friends follow a more benign path.

Kidulthood

It’s just another day at school for West London teenagers Trife (AML AMEEN) Jay (ADAM DEACON) and Moony (FEMI OYENIRAN): beatings in the classroom, sex on the playing field and drugs in the schoolyard. But things are about to flip sharply for this tight trio and their crowd. With school cancelled following the tragic suicide of bullied pupil Katie, the teenagers are all forced to face their own responsibilities and blame for the situations they have got themselves into.
15-year-old Trife is facing a crossroads in his life. His uncle is tempting him with fast money, easy women
and the gangster lifestyle; while his girlfriend Alisa (RED MADRELL) offers an escape to what she promises will be a better life. Trife must make a choice. But with word spreading that Alisa has slept with someone else, will he make the right one? Along with Jay and Moony, he also has the school bully Sam (NOEL CLARKE) to contend with. Sam is out for revenge after Jay steals his girlfriend Claire (MADELINE FAIRLEY) who he has been physically abusing and the trio (Trife, Jay and Moony) humiliate and beat him in his own house.
Trife’s girlfriend Alisa is also having a bad day. She’s just learnt that she’s pregnant. But her best friend Becky (JAIME WINSTONE) is only interested in dragging her out on a drug and shopping binge. With the brother of dead Katie set on revenge and everyone heading to the same party, the scene is set for a decisive collision. It’s step up or back down time...
A harrowing, shocking story that finds humour in its narrative and set to a blistering UK Hip Hop and Grime soundtrack, KIDULTHOOD is a new kind of British film.