Chancers: The Great Gangster Film Fraud tells the story of former criminal-turned-film-director, Paul Knight, who thought years of going straight had finally paid off, when a couple of producers asked him to direct a big budget British gangster movie A Landscape of Lies. But Paul ended up working for the biggest crooks he’d ever met – and not the smartest ones either….
Nerdly writer and host of the Britflicks podcast, Stuart Wright, talks to director Ben Lewis about what he discovered while making Chancers. If you haven’t seen the film/doc yet, it is available on iPlayer for UK residents at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yrf2t...
Nerdly writer and host of the Britflicks podcast, Stuart Wright, talks to director Ben Lewis about what he discovered while making Chancers. If you haven’t seen the film/doc yet, it is available on iPlayer for UK residents at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yrf2t...
- 2/2/2016
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Bashar Al Issa, a bankrupt Middle Eastern entrepreneur and Aoife Madden, an unemployed Irish actress join up to make feature films. Their first movie will have an almost unheard-of budget for a British film of £20m. But there’s a problem – the money never actually comes in. Undeterred, Bashar and Aoife submit £8m of production accounts to the British taxman and claim £2.5m in film tax breaks. The authorities smell a rat. They investigate, arrest, and charge the producers, and then bail them.
While out on bail, the producers decide to prove their innocence by actually making a film. They hire Paul Knight, a former nightclub bouncer, now a self-made film director, whose credits are some unreleased and unfinished films uploaded to Youtube, to make their movie for just a £100,000. The title: “A Landscape of Lies.” Paul Knight recruits an unusual cast that include one of the presenters of ITV’s daytime show Loose Women,...
While out on bail, the producers decide to prove their innocence by actually making a film. They hire Paul Knight, a former nightclub bouncer, now a self-made film director, whose credits are some unreleased and unfinished films uploaded to Youtube, to make their movie for just a £100,000. The title: “A Landscape of Lies.” Paul Knight recruits an unusual cast that include one of the presenters of ITV’s daytime show Loose Women,...
- 1/12/2016
- by Stuart Wright
- Nerdly
Take a daytime TV star, an ex-soap actor, 10 extras and some potted palms to a quarry in Hertfordshire and what do you get? An award-winning Iraq war blockbuster, of course. Here's how the producers of A Landscape Of Lies conned millions out of the taxman
Paul Knight is not the sort of person you'd take for a fall guy. A youthful-looking but physically imposing 45-year-old, Knight makes no secret of his colourful past. "Let's just say my path up until my 30th birthday went in a certain direction," he says. As a youth, his record ran to car theft, shoplifting and breaking and entering; in "the bigger leagues", he was arrested several times but always managed to avoid prison. "I was only convicted for certain things, so I'm not going to admit to what they didn't catch me for." He hints that his godfather was Charlie Kray, and that his...
Paul Knight is not the sort of person you'd take for a fall guy. A youthful-looking but physically imposing 45-year-old, Knight makes no secret of his colourful past. "Let's just say my path up until my 30th birthday went in a certain direction," he says. As a youth, his record ran to car theft, shoplifting and breaking and entering; in "the bigger leagues", he was arrested several times but always managed to avoid prison. "I was only convicted for certain things, so I'm not going to admit to what they didn't catch me for." He hints that his godfather was Charlie Kray, and that his...
- 8/24/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Scottish TV star Andrea McLean, who appears on what seems to be the British version of The View (a show called Loose Women), was conned into starring in a Brit gangster flick called A Landscape of Lies. Four men and a woman behind the bizarre plot started out by convincing McLean and others that they were making a movie. The group told people that Hollywood stars like Jeremy Irons were attached to the million-dollar project, but their investment turned out to be a way to snag money in a tax-rebate scam to the tune of almost one million dollars. The film phonies even went so far as to create fake scripts, documents and a website. "This gritty British drama is a complex exploration of lives that will draw you into their seedy world of power, lies and betrayal. The dark...
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- 3/27/2013
- by Alison Nastasi
- Movies.com
London — The clue was in the title.
In some ways "A Landscape of Lies" was a typical indie film, with a tiny budget, a B-list cast and an award from an American film festival.
What made it special is that it was created solely to cover up a huge tax fraud.
Five people in Britain face jail sentences after being convicted this week of attempting to bilk the government of 2.8 million pounds ($4.2 million) in a moviemaking scam reminiscent of Academy Award-winning hit "Argo" – without the heroic hostage rescue.
Prosecutors and tax authorities say the fraudsters claimed to be producing a made-in-Britain movie with unnamed A-list actors and a 19 million-pound budget supplied by a Jordanian firm.
In fact, officials say, the project was a sham, set up to claim almost 1.5 million pounds in goods and services tax for work that had not been done, as well as 1.3 million pounds under a...
In some ways "A Landscape of Lies" was a typical indie film, with a tiny budget, a B-list cast and an award from an American film festival.
What made it special is that it was created solely to cover up a huge tax fraud.
Five people in Britain face jail sentences after being convicted this week of attempting to bilk the government of 2.8 million pounds ($4.2 million) in a moviemaking scam reminiscent of Academy Award-winning hit "Argo" – without the heroic hostage rescue.
Prosecutors and tax authorities say the fraudsters claimed to be producing a made-in-Britain movie with unnamed A-list actors and a 19 million-pound budget supplied by a Jordanian firm.
In fact, officials say, the project was a sham, set up to claim almost 1.5 million pounds in goods and services tax for work that had not been done, as well as 1.3 million pounds under a...
- 3/15/2013
- by AP
- Huffington Post
In 2011, a military conspiracy thriller called A Landscape Of Lies was released on DVD. The story behind it is far more fantastic than that in the film itself, and has now led to five people being convicted for fraud in the first successful prosecution relating to the film tax relief fund.
Eye For Film has previously reported on concerns about scams involving this fund, which is designed to help get more British productions into cinemas and increase employment for UK-based film support businesses. This scam, though, was remarkable in its audacity. It centred on a company called Evolved Pictures which was supposedly working on a top end production starring Hollywood A-listers. The producers - Bashar Al-Issa, Aoife Madden, Tariq Hassan, Ian Sherwood and Osama Al Baghdady - claimed to be spending over £19M on their film, meaning they were entitled to over £1M in Vat repayments. They also fraudulently sought.
Eye For Film has previously reported on concerns about scams involving this fund, which is designed to help get more British productions into cinemas and increase employment for UK-based film support businesses. This scam, though, was remarkable in its audacity. It centred on a company called Evolved Pictures which was supposedly working on a top end production starring Hollywood A-listers. The producers - Bashar Al-Issa, Aoife Madden, Tariq Hassan, Ian Sherwood and Osama Al Baghdady - claimed to be spending over £19M on their film, meaning they were entitled to over £1M in Vat repayments. They also fraudulently sought.
- 3/14/2013
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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