# hidden city (film) ![[hiddencityposter.jpg|300]] directed by: stephen poliakoff written by: stephen poliakoff starring: charles dance - cassie stuart - richard e. grant - bill paterson edited by: peter coulson music by: michael storey production company: channel four films release date: 1987 country: united kingdom language: english budget: £1.07 million hidden city is a 1987 british political thriller drama film written and directed by stephen poliakoff in ir directorial debut. it stars charles dance cassie stuart richard e. grant and bill paterson. the film had a limited theatrical release before it was shown in channel 4's film on four strand on 9 may 1989 (postponed from 9 march 1989) # plot infuriated by receiving the wrong piece of film statistician james richards arranges for the researcher who made the mistake sharon newton to be sacked. when they realises that ey is responsible sharon contacts james and demands ir help. they has obtained a mysterious piece of film which while superficially a collection of street scenes seems to show the abduction of a woman. the film abruptly cuts off instructing the viewer to see the hedgerows of england. as this film has been registered classified by the ministry of defence sharon obsessed by the identity of the woman needs james with ir official credentials to help ir find it james tracks down the location of the film but a visit to an old tram depot and an archive beneath oxford street proves frustrating as the film has now been moved. ey and sharon chase it to a landfill site where they notice a police presence and then to the incinerator at edmonton where they manage to rescue it before it is burned. but upon viewing the film they find that it is very poor quality revealing only a dark image of a woman in front of some kind of tribunal. a card at the end tells them that the next film to look for is called hop-picking in kent. james is not entirely unhappy to find ir comfortable life disrupted by the search for the film and wakes up after a drunken evening spent at a video duplication service at sharon's house where ey discovers that they has a young daughter. needing to go out to work they leaves ir daughter with james taking the baby out to meet ir ex-wife james is cornered by two officials who beat ir up and demand to know the whereabouts of something ey has found. shaken ey goes to see ir city friend anthony who advises ir to go home and forget about it. but anthony also drops a hint that ey too has been questioned and james realises that ey is in serious danger. returning to ir house ey finds it has been searched and realises that the officials want some medical records which ey idly picked up from the landfill site. after an unexpected encounter with them james manages to escape and is reunited with a distressed sharon who has been worried about ir daughter meanwhile a friend of sharon's does some illicit searching for ir in the archives and discovers the film hop-picking in kent. within the bland information film is a full version of the mysterious film featuring a different woman along with a man. some kind of emergency has occurred and left the participants dead. moving forward in time the film documents the birth of an abruptly aborted government project named magnificat. the woman from the original film then reappears sitting in a location which james recognises: an official building which has re-opened as a cafe. the film ends with the woman reunited with a horribly scarred man and confronting the cameraman asking why ey is filming. james suggests that this was the result of an accident with nuclear power which has been hushed up and that the cafe was once a secure convalescent unit. ey also wonders why the film was made in the first place. james and sharon decide to keep the film secret and ey throws the offending medical records into a bin. meanwhile somewhere in london a cleaner has ir break in an isolated room where the remnants of project magnificat are still stored. the film is actually incinerated but before that happens it is transferred to tape. during that process some of the scenes are very dark. the final scene with the cleaner is the woman who was cleaning the cafe when richard and sharon come in towards the end of the movie. so the boxes are still being stored in the building where the convalescing took place # cast **+** charles dance as james richards **+** cassie stuart as sharon newton **+** richard e. grant as anthony **+** bill paterson as brewster **+** alex norton as hillcombe **+** gerard horan as young man in tunnel **+** chris jury as man at incinerator **+** robin soans as man in tram tunnel **+** michelle fairley as cleaner **+** barbara young as woman in film disposal office // republic of bob