Butterfly Kiss
(1995)

British Screen and The Merseyside Film Production Fund present a Dan Films Production
Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Julie Baines and Sarah Daniel, Screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Starring: Amanda Plummer, Saskia Reeves, Kathy Jamieson, Des McAleer

Amanda Plummer stars as Eunice, a body-pierced drifter who goes on a killing spree in northern England. Miriam (Saskia Reeves) confronts her and so begins a journey on the road, Eunice killing and Miriam picking up the pieces.

'A taut work of rigor and complexity, laced with flashes of pitch-dark humor!'
Los Angeles Times

'The performances have a gravity about them that is unusual in the movies'
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

Go Now
(1995)

Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Andrew Eaton.
Co-written by Jimmy McGovern and Paul Powell. A Revolution Films production for the BBC.

Starring: Robert Carlyle and Juliet Aubrey.

The story of Nick, a Scottish construction worker who falls in love but is then diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, taking him and his lover on an emotional journey.

This film won the Prix Europa and a Best Single Drama nomination at the BAFTAs

Jude
(1996)

Polygram Filmed Entertainment in association with BBC Films presents a Revolution Films Production. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Andrew Eaton, Screenplay by Hossein Amini, Based on the novel 'Jude the Obscure' by Thomas Hardy.

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Kate Winslet, Liam Cunningham, Rachel Griffiths, June Whitfield

An adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1895 novel 'Jude the Obscure', JUDE depicts a stonemason's brave but doomed attempt to educate and better himself while finding love in the university town of Christminster. Thanks to its convention-flouting depiction of a relationship between cousins, the novel created such an uproar when it was published that Hardy never wrote another one, retreating into his poetry and an old age of rural seclusion.

Winterbottom identifies how JUDE has remained relevant over a hundred years: 'Here is someone who wants to change his life. There are many who want to improve their lives but can't for whatever reason: prejudice, economic problems. The same with marriage... the nature of the prejudice may have changed but the ostracism is often exactly the same. So it's not a question of it being particularly relevant now, but always relevant'.

A cross-seasonal story called for relocation of the shoot, as Winterbottom explains: 'Because the book spans ten years and covers all seasons, we wanted and needed scenes set in summertime. So we knew we'd have to film some of it abroad. Well, there aren't that many places with guaranteed sunshine that look like 19th Century England, so we went to New Zealand. It took about 40 hours to get there, and when we arrived it was pouring with rain. Everyone said, oh, its always raining here. In all, I think we had a day and a half of sunshine. And, as it turned out, there was plenty of sunshine in England!'

'This isn't a Merchant Ivory film' said Andrew Eaton, 'but there are other ways to do period films'.

'Winterbottom is angry, clear-headed, and with a sure visual sense.'
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

Welcome to Sarajevo
(1997)

Channel Four Films and Miramax Films present a Dragon Pictures Production.

Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Graham Broadbent and Damian Jones, Screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce from Mike Nicholson's book 'Natasha's Story'

Stars Stephen Dillane, Kerry Fox, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, Goran Visnjic, Emira Nusevic

In 1992, Sarajevo is proclaimed the '14th most dangerous place on Earth' by the UN and in attempting to describe this time, the film creates a vivid portrait of a city in the throws of madness. ITN correspondent Michael Nicholson, was sent to the city in July 1992, three months into the siege. Despite his seasoned experiences in previous wars, Nicholson is shocked by the extent of the brutality occurring, and makes the momentous decision to smuggle eight-year-old Natasha Mihaljcic out of the firing line. 'I want audiences to feel what I felt while the war was happening, what I felt when I first went to Sarajevo,' explains Michael. 'How is it possible that we sat through the war, watching it in our living rooms on telvision, flicking it over to the sitcom on the other side and never really doing anything about it?'

Based on Nicholson's own recollection of events from his book 'Natasha's Story', the film combines real news footage, fiction and a contemporary soundtrack (including the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays), and at £5 million, was Michael's most expensive film to date. 'The general intention was the use archive where we could, because it just felt like nothing could be more powerful than to watch that material, it's terrible stuff to watch.' says Michael.

The film also stars Goran Visnjic, a Croat playing a Muslim. He served in the Croat army briefly before going to acting school. 'The Serb Navy used to shell the base which I was guarding' said Goran.

The film was being developed as the war continued. When the Dayton Peace Agreement was being signed in Jan 1996, the crew were already on their first recce to Sarajevo. 'The only dangerous things were landmines.' says Michael. 'When we first went there, they hadn't even had time to work out where the problems were, so that was the most disconcerting time. At one point we were in a village that hadn't been cleared for mines and it was 'Stay on the path! Stay on the path! Don't go off the path!''

The state of the city and the people within it had an effect on all of the cast and crew. 'When I was there, I was really taken with the people. They have an amazing resilience and spirit.' recalls Woody Harrelson. 'I remember one night, we went to this bar where they had a theatre upstairs. The seats they used to sit on were from air drops. They ran this theatre throughout the war and people would come while the shelling was going on, and sit there and watch theatre. Something about that had a major impact on me.'

The film was entered into competition in the 50th Cannes Film Festival

'Winterbottom thrives on the jagged, jogging rhythms of a city under siege, and taking his cue from Oliver Stone, mixes 35mm and video formats with substantial news footage, constantly reiterating the emphatic polemical line: that when push came to shove, the West stood by and watched'
Time Out

'by turns brash and simplistic and utterly powerful. See it. Then argue.'
Empire

'too realistic and revolting to be enjoyed as entertainment'
Sunday Times

I Want You
(1998)

Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Andrew Eaton, Screenplay by Eoin McNamee

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Alessandro Nivola, Luka Petrusic, Labina Mitevska

An English coastal town is the setting for a story of obsessive love when Martin returns to it to search out his ex-girlfriend Helen, following an eight year prison term for killing her father. A young boy and his beautiful sister are drawn into Martin's pursuit of his former lover as he leads them on a dark and tense journey into the heart of desire.

'The best description I've heard of I Want You is that it's a 'twisted love story',' says Producer Andrew Eaton. 'The film is neither thriller nor love story, but instead cleverly exploits its own ambivalence. We wanted the film to be about the idea of intrigue and for the love story between the characters to unravel as the film went along.'

Premiered in official competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Wonderland
(1999)

Universal Pictures International and BBC Films present a Kismet Film Company and Revolution Films Production.

Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Andrew Eaton, Screenplay by Laurence Coriat.

Starring: Ian Hart, Shirley Henderson, Kika Markham, Gina McKee, Molly Parker, Jack Shepherd, John Simm, Stuart Townsend.

Set in London during Bonfire Night weekend, WONDERLAND follows three generations of one family as their separate paths cross each other.

Mum and Dad are marooned in a loveless marriage, both scarred by the absence of their son Darren. Debbie, Nadia and Molly are their three daughters. Molly is due to have her first baby any day. Debbie has a nine year old boy, Jack, but still wants to spend her nights on the town. Nadia lives alone and is looking for someone to fall in love with.

Set on location with a small crew, using a hand held camera, no lights, no slates, no boom and no extras, the film tries to capture the everyday experience of life in a big city. The characters in the film are the people you see every day on the train, on the bus, at work. Their problems are mundane and eternal: how to find some contentment in this world.

According to Andrew Eaton (producer), the film will surprise audiences familiar with the biting undercurrent of Winterbottom's earlier work: 'Wonderland has a very upbeat ending. You get a sense that the characters, whatever their individual struggles, are after all, surviving in the city'.

The film is a return to familiar territory for Winterbottom, as he explains: 'A few years ago I directed four one-hour films written by Roddy Doyle, called 'Family'. Each film showed the same family from one person's point of view and since then I'd been interested in trying to make a film about a family that is living separately. Most films that try and deal with families focus on their time together - either because they all live in the same house, or they pick a family occasion to bring them together - a wedding, a funeral or whatever. I liked trying to look at a family and what binds them together even though they rarely meet. That's my experience of family - and I think that's true of a lot of people.'

Winterbottom was given the script of Wonderland by producer Michele Camarda who had developed it through her own production company Kismet Films, and agreed to direct it through Revolution Films with Andrew Eaton as producer alongside Camarda.

Finance for WONDERLAND was secured via Revolution's first-look deal with Universal Pictures and Camarda's first-look development deal with BBC Films. The two companies also jointley backed Winterbotto's JUDE. BBC Films financed his 1994 film GO NOW and Universal backed I WANT YOU, as well as Revolution's RESURRECTION MAN, directed by Marc Evans.

With such long-standing relationships in place, Winterbottom felt the good faith of his backers allowed him to adopt a more radical approach to making the film, both in the way he prepared for the shoot and during the actual filming. He wanted to capture what he felt was a very fresh and accurate take on London in the script. But in order to achieve that he felt he had to employ some some unconventional methods to give the film a 'natural' feel. This included taking locations around London pretty much as the crew found them and filming real people instead of extras.

Principal photography began on September 28 1998 and the film shot entirely on location in London for seven weeks, on super 16. In keeping with the natural style of the film, production design was very minimal and locations such as Soho bars, Soho cafés, football stadiums, pubs and bingo halls were filmed without the usual encumberments of lighting, set-dressing and props.

'One of the things that appealed about the script was that it seemed to be a very fresh and accurate look at London. But it's one thing to get that feeling into the script, another to try and realise it on film. So that was definitely one of the reasons for shooting the film in the way we did', says Winterbottom.

The lack of lighting led to some interesting situations: 'We did a lot of tests to see what stocks to use and Sean our DoP is very unafraid of going right up into people's faces,' Eaton says. 'Amazingly they didn't object after the initial shock and just accepted it. Perhaps we're all getting more used to the culture of docu-soaps.'

'Wonderland is nothing less than a superb piece of film-making'
Empire, Feb 2000

'One of the best cinematic accounts of London I've ever seen... a genuine collectors' item'
The Times

With or Without You
(1999)

A Revolution Films Production for FilmFour and Miramax.

Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Produced by Andrew Eaton, Screenplay by John Forte.

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Dervla Kirwan, Yvan Attal

Vincent and Rosie have been living together for ten years in Belfast, but there's a gap in their lives that only a baby can fill. Unfortunately, despite medical consultations and much sex, there is no joy. Benoit, an old pen pal of Rosie's, appears on the scene. moves into the spare room, and shows no sign of leaving.