Director Mike Figgis has woven a rich tapestry of memory and fantasy into this brooding examination of one man's coming of age. Lush images of colonial Africa are juxtaposed with banal acts of contemporary life. Interspersed is an interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve. Conceived as a series of short stories, Figgis wrote the texts at a time when he had formed a theatre company and wanted to explore live mixed media. But his plans changed with the success of his first feature, Stormy Monday, and he put the idea aside. But the concept stayed with him for 12 years because, as Figgis says, "ideas are never lost... they come out in a different way in an entirely different context." The result is this engaging juxtaposition of images and narrative featuring Julian Sands and Saffron Burrows. Owen Levy

The oldest story of all...

Mike Figgis' The Loss of Sexual Innocence is surely the longest-gestating movie in the festival. Figgis wrote the original treatment (which deals in fractured, elliptical fashion with the Adam and Eve myth) more than 17 years ago.

Figgis first planned to mount it in a warehouse as an 8-hour multimedia stage show. That plan fell through. Then, he managed to interest a Hollywood studio in the project: "They told me everything was fantastic…" he says, "except for one tiny detail. 'It's about Adam,' they said. 'It would be much better if he was white. Eve can be black.'" The head of distribution at the studio claimed (as Figgis puts it) that "the world wasn't ready to see a black man fucking a white woman." Figgis refused to compromise and the financing (which was all in place) quickly unravelled.

Figgis' inspiration came from Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, in which the same character recurs through a number of different tales.

"My mother used to work for Hemingway and my sister was his god-daughter," the English writer-director revealed.

After nine features, Figgis says he was sick of the conventional approach to narrative film-making, which he found "deeply boring." He relished the chance to work in a more experimental style. "But thematically, this is the same as any film I've ever made… it's about relationships between men and women. We film-makers have very few ideas."

In March, Figgis starts shooting a new feature, an adaptation of Strindberg's Miss Julie which will star Peter Mullan and Saffron Burrows. "It's three people in a room beating each other to death… it's right up my street."