bfi Sutherland Trophy Tour

A short synopsis of each film from the Sutherland Trophy Tour follows:

THE PLAGUE (from the New British Cinema strand)

Set against a backdrop of London estate blocks, police wagons and spray paint graffiti, and with a pirate radio commentary provided by Skinnyman and DJ Flip, The Plague follows one weekend in the lives of four friends as they go about their routine, visiting mates, smoking, drinking, freestyling, chasing girls, running scams, partying and getting into trouble. Made on a tiny budget by a gang of enthusiastic young film-makers barely out of college, 23-year-old writer and director Greg Hall injects each scene with wit, imagination and resourcefulness. Winner of the inaugural Katrin Cartlidge Foundation prize at the 10th Sarajevo Film Festival this year, this film was described by presenter Mike Leigh as 'serious, funny, real, surreal and totally anarchic'. It's all those things as well as being a welcome addition to our programme, a raw slice of urban life with a hip hop swagger, which has an authenticity and universality about it that are sure to strike a chord with anyone who has grown up in a big city.

D: Greg Hall/with Samuel Anokye, Brett Harris, David Bonnick Junior, Nur Alam Rahman/UK 2004/105 mins/ BETA sp

TANG POETRY (from the Experimenta strand)

Made in Beijing at the height of the SARS epidemic, this engagingly bizarre indie feature explores the taciturn relationship between a retired thief and his apprentice (or is she his mistress?), who is trying to persuade him to do the proverbial 'one last job'. It also explores the glorious tradition of Tang Dynasty poetry: celebrated poems are displayed in captions as chapter headings. On the face of it, there's a gapingly ironic discrepancy between the poetry (Wang Zhihuan's 'At Heron's Lodge', Wang Wei's 'One-Hearted', etc) and the grungy lives of the protagonists in a near-bare apartment. But beyond the obvious irony there's an aesthetic point being made. In its careful, rigid compositions, its wry minimalism and its use of reflections, the film is reaching for the rigour and resonance of classical poetry. It's a worthy ambition, and Korean-Chinese director Zhang Lu (in Korean: Jang Ryul) succeeds in giving the film a real formal integrity. But the film is also very funny, in the slow-burn, deadpan way that Tsai Ming-Liang films are funny. Aside from the drollness of the obsessive-compulsive behaviour it shows, the film has the wit to displace its dramatic climax - a murder - to the offscreen apartment next door.

D: Zhang Lu/with Wang Xiang, Cui Yuemei, Zhao Lixiang/China-South Korea 2003/86 mins/35mm

Nominated for the Sutherland Trophy

UNIFORM (Zhifu) - from the World Cinema strand

Wang Xiaojian is a young man in deep shit at the time he impulsively decides to start impersonating a cop. His father is running up medical bills. His only income comes from the family's modest laundry and tailoring business. And, because he was in the wrong place when angry workers raided an accounts office, the neighbours think he's a stool-pigeon. He starts off wearing a police shirt uncollected from the laundry. Before long, he's knocked up a complete uniform for himself. Wearing it not only gives him the 'status' to extort bribes but also lends him the confidence to start dating Shasha, who sells pirated CDs. Like him, though, she has a secret other life ... Winner of the new director prize in Vancouver, Uniform catches a mood not found in other recent Chinese indies - maybe because the plot distantly echoes Huang Zuolin's Phony Phoenixes , a Shanghai classic from 1947. Diao (who co-wrote Zhang Yang's Shower and played the elder brother in Yu Lik-Wai's All Tomorrow's Parties) takes the elements of fable and Gogol-style satire in his stride and shoots it as a beautifully observed piece of urban realism. Great performances, too.

D: Diao Yinan/ with Liang Hongli, Zeng Xueqiong, Han Kai/ China 2003/ 94 mins/ BETA sp

Nominated for the Sutherland Trophy

HARVEST TIME (Vremja Zatvy) - from the Cinema Europa strand

Set on a collective farm in the early 50s, Marina Razhbezhkina's debut feature is conceived as a reminiscence by the protagonist's dead son. His mother, Antonina Gusova (Ludmila Motornaja), raises her two sons and confronts the problems of a husband who has lost both legs and is unable to work. The only woman driver of a combine harvester in the region, she becomes the acknowledged champion and is awarded a Red Banner in recognition. She regularly patches the banner, which is being eaten by mice, and continues to win the award. This is a clever and multi-layered film in which the realities of the Communist Dream still exert some force. Despite deprivation, life has vitality, and the child's view of the home, with its goats and geese, has a reality lost in the uncaring present. The images of the female driver, juxtaposed with an endless landscape, are impressive, constructing an ambiguous interplay with the stereotypes of Socialist Realist art. Above all, perhaps, this strongly poetic film creates a sense of the value of the lives of those living in apparent obscurity.

D: Marina Razbezhkina/with Ludmila Motornaya, Vyacheslav Batrakov, Dima Yakovlev/Russia 2004/67 mins/35mm - Harvest Time will play with the short ARKS

Nominated for the Sutherland Trophy

ARKS (Arkar) - from the Short Cuts and Animation strand

One hundred miles north of the Arctic circle, a small community of hardy individuals fish on a frozen lake in temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius. This documentary joins them in their cabins or 'arks'.

D: Karin Karlsson, Mita Moberg/Sweden 2004/13 mins/35mm

FROZEN   (from the New British Cinema strand)

Annie Swarbick has been missing for two years. Her grief stricken sister Kath (Shirley Henderson) has been referred to parish priest Noyen Roy (Roshan Seth) for counselling after a suicide attempt. However, she is still driven to find out what happened to Kath, as police investigations have proved fruitless. Encouraged after finding a clip of CCTV footage showing the final sighting of her sister walking down a dockyard alleyway, she becomes increasingly obsessive, believing she has found an entrance to an alternative reality where Annie may still be alive. While others remain sceptical, Noyen becomes more fascinated with his charge. Filmed in Fleetwood, Lancashire and Morecambe Bay, and depicting visions of worlds both imagined and realistically everyday, Frozen is the strikingly beautiful debut feature from Juliet McKoen, whose award winning short Mavis and the Mermaid screened at the Festival in 2000. Shirley Henderson has built an impressive CV of diverse work in recent years, and her natural, casually engaging performances are always eye catching. Supported by a strong cast of recognisable British talent, she's reliably terrific here in what is surprisingly her first leading role in a feature. Michael Hayden

D: Juliet McKoen/with Shirley Henderson, Ger Ryan, Roshan Seth/UK 2004/90 mins/35mm