CURRENT PROJECTS - FEATURE FILMS AND TV
1. CUCKOO IN THE NEST is a drama set in Ireland in the aftermath of the IRA troubles.
Feature
Film
Written and
Directed by: Jane Sanger
Logline:
A
propulsive drama, powerful, moving, mesmerising. A seemingly
innocent young girl who stays with the Irish family is a Cuckoo in
the Nest as her troubled past brings devastation and
death.
Short
Synopsis:
Billy
struggles after being involved with the accidental killing of a
British man in N Ireland at the end of The Troubles, inveigled by
his childhood friend Jimmy. Billy and his pregnant wife escape to
her uncle's cottage in Scotland to make a new start. Life is not
easy and in exchange for help with the children, so his wife can
return to work, a young lady enters their life. A series of
accidents that follow seem more than mere coincidence. Who exactly
is Megan? She seems to know some uncomfortable truths about their
past life. She must be dealt with before complete havoc ruins their
family's life. Jimmy suggests snipering her to stop her
interference in a crime that could send them to
jail.
Please look at www.facebook.com/cuckoointhenest
Mood Board and further photos on:
https://www.pinterest.com/elanstitch/cuckoointhenest
2. BLOODY LOVE is a tense,
coming of age, drama thriller adapted from an award winning
play by David Fielding by Jane Sanger and Di
Lofthouse
Either
Feature Film or 8 part tv series
Synopsis:
3.
SECRET ACT - 6 part dark thriller for TV
The pilot
for this series was written at NFTS under the tutillage of Peter
Ansorge, ex head of Ch 4 drama commissioning and Drama BBC
Producer.
In the sleepy town of Brambly Beeches, in the home counties, everyone knows everyone's business, there are no secrets. It's in a perfect position for commuting to London yet enjoying the country life. It boasts one of the best co-ed private schools in the country and seven of the reamining grammar schools, so house prices soar as families fight to buy them and ensure their children places at these schools.
When Vanessa, a beautiful and extremely rich woman finds her builder Greg has disappearred, she can think only of the inconvenience of not having her orangerie finished for her daughter's birthday. Only Perry his father truly wants to hunt him out, the police are not interested.
Mateo, a Peruvian and BAFTA nominated documentary maker comes to the village as his wife was born there. He starts to quietly investigate whilst outwardly making a new documentary on the local commune where Greg and Perry live.
Despite its
perfect facade he gradually uncovers many secrets that lead him
into the momentous discovery of a Victorian Ice Cave, torture
chamber and many undercurrents of criminal and immoral behaviour in
the community.
4.
DAGGER OF ICE -fantasy
drama/thriller
Written and Directed by Jane Sanger
Vanessa is depressed that she cannot have a second child and devotes all her time to her perfect six year old daughter Bebe. Her stepdaughter from he husband's first marriage is resentful at being overlooked. Tom is posted to rural Canada with his job and Vanessa tries to fit in to a new life. At a mothers lunch that over runs she is late for the school pick up, Bebe attempts to walk home alone and is run over and killed.
Vanessa is overwhelmed with guilt and grief and retreats into herself ignoring her husband and stepdaughter's feelings, so they eventually leave for a while to live with his mother. Gradually Vanessa recovers and resurrects her former life as a wildlife photographer. In the snowy forest she discovers a beautiful snowchild and her brother. They lead her into a hidden wild world of strange creatures and other lives. She is introduced to Hunter an imposing but taciturn woodsman and he reluctantly agrees to teach her forest ways.
All is not as it seems in the beautiful white world and the creatures and snow children are hounded by a malevolent force. Vanessa witnesses a horrific murder. She must persuade her husband to return and help her save the snow children and herself from this evil. Her family don't believe her fantastical descriptions and it's a race against time to make them understand that her boundaries between imagination and reality are not blurred.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dagger-of-Ice/340603956131808?ref=hl
Beautiful Mood board on: https://www.pinterest.com/elanstitch/dagger-of-ice/
5. MURDER AT THE MINT - historical drama for tv set in UK and India from1925-47
My grandfather was employed by the Indian Mint in Calcutta from 1926 and following the Great Crash in 1929 stayed on for another 16 years til 1947 just before Indian Independence and the Partition. The story is based on the letters he sent home and those written to him. I am presently writing a script which incorporates characters into this partly fictional story.
TV Series - Involving forced marriage, social pretensions over class and race and The Fishing Fleet, the nickname for the unmarried women who came to India in the Raj looking for husbands.
Wilfred a goldsmith has married a lady from the upper middleclass, the beautiful spoilt and pampered Eleanor, the daughter of a rich merchant. Schooled by governesses and finished at a school near Versailles with her sisters, her parents feel she has married beneath her to a man who works with his hands. However there is something very flawed about Eleanor and the family must take whatever offer of marriage comes her way.
A doting mother, she finds life very difficult in her "reduced"circumstances and when Albert is given the coveted post as artist engraver to the Indian Mint he travels alone. On her visit with her young daughter she hates the heat, and is looked down on by the army and civil service wives and not allowed into the best clubs. Broken she returns to the UK, leaving her husband alone in India for 10 years with one visit home per year.
Lonely,
Wilfred takes a beautiful Indian mistress. He has begged Eleanor to
come out again with both his son and daughter and she makes one
more visit. Her father has died and left her with the equivalent of
£2 million in today's money. During this time there is a terrible
scandal as the body of Priti, Wilfred's mistress is found in the
press room, ritually and weirdly displayed over the press. The
scandal must be hushed up but Leo, Albert's young son wants to find
out more.
Fast forward
to modern times and Anushi has been left her great grandmother's
belongings in Calcutta. Curious about her heritage she leaves her
medical studies for a sabbatical and uncovers the scandal of the
murder which she is determined to solve.
6. THE NIGHTRIDERS - historical drama for tv
Nightrider is a 8 part historical adventure /drama for television
Written and Directed by Jane Sanger
Little is known in contemporary times about The White Slave Trade, but it is a historical fact. This was carried out by the Sultans of Morocco for over 130 years til the Americans sailed to Rabat and freed the remaining slaves and overcame the Sultan.
Our story begins in 1714 as George I comes to the throne and Barbary Pirates were being sent by the Sultan Ismail Moulay to the south European Coast and particularly to Great Britain on the West Country , South Irish and South Welsh coasts to capture strong young men to build his palace and red head girls in particular for his hareem.
The story follows the plight of the Fellowes, a squires family living in the West Country, when one stormy night their daughter Elizabeth, a red haired beauty and her brother John go missing as the Barbary Pirates attack, there can be only one dreadful conclusion. Lady Mary is forbidden to visit the local white witch, but she disobeys her husband. Esther tells her the children are still alive. Sir Richard goes to the Prime Minister to seek audience with the King to send ships to bring his beloved children and all the other slaves back. He is met with a brick wall.
Determined to do something, he and the other local squires meet and decide to fund the earliest known coastguard: The Nightriders, who will patrol and protect the coast from further attacks. Another stormy night a year later a lone Nightrider rides up to the Manor door and deposits a very wet and feverish young lady there and rides off before he can be questioned. Lady Mary takes her in and is shocked to see it’s her heavily pregnant daughter, her hair dyed brown from walnut juice. Elizabeth is struck dumb and so the story contuinues.
Please follow and like the facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nightrider/330478560489409
Twitter: @nightridertv
For the mood board please
look at :https://www.pinterest.com/elanstitch/nightrider/
7.THE RUSSIAN
SECRET - a 4 part drama tv
series
Darcy 30's,
a married mum of 3 children, struggles to make ends meet
and
is shocked to receive a summons from a solicitor. She has been left a substantial amount in a will. But she has no wealthy relations, so where does the money come from? She has to sign to say that she will keep the contents secret before the will is read. Nikolai Naryshkin (Nick to her) a far distant memory, was an older man who chatted to her when she was a barmaid as a student, but he is long forgotten and has never seen her since. His will reveals dark secrets and a mission that must be completed before she can claim the riches that will set her family up for life.
8. THE HALF STITCHED HEALING CLUB - a 6 part drama tv series
In a sleepy, home counties village, people rarely move or move away. A group of older, characterful village ladies run a local art and craft group where they are concentrating on making memory quilts. Then a very attractive, older, new age woman joins their midst, a newcomer to the village, a healer and shaman. She isn’t like the other ladies who go to the stitching club or play bowls, she’s like a breath of fresh air. Rivalries, long held resentments and dark secrets begin to unfurl.
With her serene looks, air of confidence and other worldliness she dazzles them all. Her mother has died and she has temporarily returned to the village where she was brought up, and suddenly people do remember her. Whilst picking apart her past they remember their own.
Then she invites them all to South America to a free healing workshop, a woman’s circle she is holding. Suspicious at first and dead against it the ladies find excuses not to go. However, feeling that life has more to offer than this sheltered village, with holidays in France and Spain, they gradually agree to an adventure. Will all their traumas and bad experiences be healed as they continue making memory quilts in the warm sun of Ecuador? Whilst eating food they have never tried, doing yoga, meditation, taking mountain walks, exploring the local towns and eventually taking Ayahuasca with a shaman, many experiences open to them and they determine to change things in their lives back home.
A feel good, dark comedy about English Life.
9. TATTENHAM CORNER TOMBOY( TC Tomboy) - a 6 part drama tv series
This is a gangster film based around true events from SE London to Brighton and involving a young girl, who starts life as a tomboy, who has grown up in the most surprising circumstances to control a dodgy and criminal empire.
10. THE BEE MAKER
A
horror/thriller involving a lonely and reclusive man of 50 ish,
Dereck, who has been maligned and abused by his mother since a
baby. Invalided she still now lives with him and is as demanding as
ever.
Derek is
sacked from his accountancy job and feeling very aggrieved he
continues with making some mechanical bees he has been working on,
alongside his sideline in mending old watches.
Determined
to get a girlfriend and stop the taunts from his mother he
purchases a sex doll and keeps her out of sight of his bed bound
mother, though pretends she is real.
Everyone begins to taunt him over various things and he determines revenge with an army of mechanical killer bees, carrying deadly venom he extracts fropm his insect collection.
When he
decides to kill everyone at the office where he was sacked he needs
to have the help of some young children with small deft fingers and
he captures two to help him. Not bargaining for what happens next
events begin to unravel.