Hidden City

Hidden City is a 1987 British political thriller drama film written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff in his 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 she realises that he is responsible, Sharon contacts James and demands his help. She 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 his official credentials, to help her 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. He 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 his 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 he discovers that she has a young daughter. Needing to go out to work, she leaves her daughter with James. Taking the baby out to meet his ex-wife, James is cornered by two officials, who beat him up and demand to know the whereabouts of something he has found. Shaken, he goes to see his City friend Anthony, who advises him to go home and forget about it. But Anthony also drops a hint that he too has been questioned, and James realises that he is in serious danger. Returning to his house, he finds it has been searched and realises that the officials want some medical records which he idly picked up from the landfill site.