Joe’s Palace’ and ‘Capturing Mary

Two major new screenplays by the award-winning Stephen Poliakoff made for the BBC and HBO Films and due to be broadcast in November 2007. A stellar cast led by Michael Gambon and Dame Maggie Smith feature in these exquisite, major new films that are linked by a grand house and memories of the past.

In Joe’s Palace, the first of two screenplays, Stephen Poliakoff explores the relationship between a reclusive billionaire (played by Michael Gambon), and the teenage boy he employs to take care of a grand house. This is a lavishly shot contemporary film about loneliness and loss. In Capturing Mary, the companion film for BBC2 set in the same exquisite empty house, Poliakoff takes his characters into a dark and terrifying exploration of the past and its power to capture and destroy a person’s life. Dame Maggie Smith plays the lead role.

Included also is A Real Summer, a glorious companion drama to Capturing Mary charting the development of an unexpected friendship between a young aristocratic woman and Mary before she enters the dangerous world of Mr Graham’s house.