FILMS DIRECTED BY CRISTIAN SOLIMENO
I MADE THIS FOR YOU
FEATURE FILM - 76 MINUTES
A searingly honest, British feature film which tackles mental health, depression and suicide head on. A powerful narrative drama about a man, played by Gary Grant, who’s cut himself off from his friends and family and has recently attempted suicide. Now, he he’s returned to the edge again. Standing at the ultimate crossroads he’s surprised to discover that despite his efforts to isolate himself, people haven’t yet given up on him. He unexpectedly receives a documentary made about his life by his worried friend, played by writer and director, Cristian Solimeno. The film-within-a-film mixes reality with fiction in a unique and groundbreaking way and despite the seriousness of the subject, what results is something funny, beautiful and deeply cathartic that provokes action and conversation. It was described by Mark Dinning, the multi award winning, former editor of Empire magazine as a Capra film for the 21st century
THE GLASS MAN
FEATURE FILM - 110 MINUTES
Every morning, Martin Pyrite gets dressed, takes breakfast, kisses his wife Julie goodbye, and then sets off for work. Only Martin isn't going anywhere. Having lost his high-paying financial services job, he is sinking fast into near-insurmountable debt. To make matters worse, Martin's former employer has made him the fall guy for a disastrous business decision, essentially blacklisting him from other firms. Determined not to let his wife know, Martin strives to maintain the couple's posh standard of living by stretching their credit to its very limits. Then, late one night, a sinister debt collector knocks on his door with a proposition: help him carry out one task, and he'll wipe Martin's financial slate clean. However, the simplicity of this ominous request belies the chilling journey ahead. Martin quickly finds himself descending into his own private hell, where he must confront his worst fears made real.
THIS IS WHAT IT IS
FEATURE FILM - 92 MINUTES
This is what it is follows Cass on three weekends in three different seasons. In the first, it’s Christmas and his beleaguered friends are tying to help him get back out there and pick up the pieces of his broken heart after being dumped by his girlfriend Kelly. 6 months on and its the height of summer, a revitalised Cass is now a man about town, he’s the one doing the heartbreaking and even though he feels ready to face his 30th birthday, he really isn’t at all. The gap between the fun he’s trying to have and the pain he still feels is just too wide to sustain and our drunken Icarus falls a long way down. Finally it's the following spring. He’s in a new relationship and the sadness and excesses of his breakup are behind him. And then of course, he bumps in to Kelly…
A deconstructed Rom com, a love letter to London and a funny, moving look at the process of trying to get over someone.
SMILE
Partly a response to Charlie Caplin's famous saying that all he needed to make a film was a policeman, a park bench and a beautiful girl. Smile is an attempt to reconnect with an old fashioned, physical approach to comedy and story telling, it's a small film with a big heart.
Henry’s big problem is that he's silly, not just for fun either, for a job, in fact, in more than one way, Henry is quite simply, a clown. Its all gotten a bit too much for Mariane, played by Elize Du Toit, and on one fateful day, when he returns from a children's party and is in no hurry to get out of costume she snaps. Henry's commitment to always making em laugh is stretched to it’s limit when he follows her and discovers that she's having an affair with with his polar opposite, a policeman. As the love triangle converges around a park bench we discover that there really is nothing quite so sad as a broken hearted clown.
FEATURE FILM - 19 MINUTES
LOVE
FEATURE FILM - 14 MINUTES
Love is a multi award winning short film starring Brett Allen and Amanda Thompson, about a woman in the advanced stages of a degenerative disease who wants her husband to help end her life. As he does his best to fulfil her wishes, their memories skip backwards to the beautiful and tragic moments that have led them to that point. Hard hitting, moving and thought provoking, Love is a film that stays with the viewer for a long time.
Very much a film for a grown up audience and should not be watched by anyone under the age of 15