There is a global civil war between men and women. A teenage girl tries to escape this reality and arrives at a hidden place where a strange unicorn lives with a family: sister, brother, many children and an old, bedridden woman who stays in contact with the world through her radio.
In the docklands of East London stands the Empire State, a nightclub full of magic and mystery. Designed like an ocean liner, it's become a battle ground where anything can happen. In the midst of the action, a young boy stows aboard to search for his friend who has disappeared in the entrails of the club.
A young woman enacts an imaginative revenge on her boyfriend for playing away. Director Chris Petit made this three-minute short to test a new super 16mm Kodak film stock to be used on Peter Greenaway’s upcoming feature The Draughtsman’s Contract.
While holidaying in Ireland, a pregnant children's author finds her mental state becoming increasingly unstable, resulting in paranoia, hallucinations, and visions of a doppelgänger.
A BBC dramatization of the Pendle witch trials of Lancashire, England that occurred in 1616.
Jenny Grey a horse loving country girl leaves her widowed father to move to the city after her father's frustrations towards Jenny and her desires to ride horses, after her mother had died from a horse-riding accident. Jenny finds work at a country race track and becomes obsessed with a troublesome horse called "Blue Fire Lady". "Blue Fire Lady" shows promise in Jenny's hands, but around everyone else misbehaves and shows no discipline. When "Blue Fire Lady" is put up for auction it is up to Jenny to either buy her or prove her.
In 1940 Kenya as their country prepares for war, the local aristocratic social set lives a decadent, self-indulgent lifestyle, that leads to murder. The same events were also dramatised in the feature film White Mischief, which was released seven months after the first transmission of The Happy Valley.
Alex is a disgruntled waiter at a snobby exclusive restaurant who falls on hard times. Forced to deal with the contempt and disgust of the upper class, Alex & cohorts attempt to go on a rampage. Meanwhile, General Karprov and Spider plot to involve the inept anarchists into their plans to derail the prime-minister-to-be's campaign.
In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser - is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London Blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
When Stephanie, a famous violinist, contracts multiple sclerosis her life begins to fall apart. Her career ends, her husband leaves her for another woman and her favorite pupil leave the country. Unable to bear all this loss, Stephanie attempts suicide.
Greed, corruption, ignorance, and disease. Midsummer, 1349: the Black Death reaches northern Germany. Minstrels go to Hamelin for the Mayor's daughter's wedding to the Baron's son. He wants her dowry to pay his army while his father taxes the people to build a cathedral he thinks will save his soul. A local apothecary who's a Jew seeks a treatment for the plague; the priests charge him with witchcraft. One of the minstrels, who has soothed the Mayor's daughter with his music, promises to rid the town of rats for the fee. The Mayor agrees, then renigs. In the morning, the plague, the Jew's trial, and the Piper's revenge come at once.
English aristocrat Tony Last welcomes tragedy into his life when he invites John Beaver to visit his vast estate. There Beaver makes the acquaintance of Tony's wife, Brenda. Together, they continue their relationship in a series of bedroom assignations in London. Trusting to a fault, Tony is unaware that anything is amiss until his wife suddenly asks for a divorce. With his life in turmoil, Tony goes on a haphazard journey to South America.
Lavretsky returns to Russia from Europe and joins the group of admirers of his beautiful young cousin Liza.