CAREER GIRLS looks at two young career women of 30 who meet up after a long period apart, and re-discover the relationship they enjoyed when they shared an apartment some years ago.

During the course of the one weekend of the action, the women encounter several people with whom they were students in London in the mid 80s, and through a series of flashbacks to those youthful days, we build up a picture of the way they have all changed in the intervening years. The film is about love and youth and sex and memories, and is moving, sad and at times funny.

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A time-jumping tale of the enduring friendship between two insecure school friends, CAREER GIRLS stars Katrin Cartlidge as Hannah and Lynda Steadman as Annie in what is essentially a poingnantly comic portrait of two characters. When Annie arrives in London to visit Hannah, her former flatmate, the story switches between the present - conversations between the two catching up on the banal reality of each other´s lives - and flashbacks to six years ago, in which we see Hannah as a short-tempered, sharp-tongued rebel, and Annie as vulnerable, with a horrendous, near-disfiguring facial skin rash and spasmodic twitching. While still the misfit, Hannah has metamorphosed into an outwardly confident professional, while Annie has cleaned up both her skin abd her act. The two gradually re-established their relationship on a deeper emotional level after some bizarre encounters with men along the way.

Mike Leigh, writer and film director, was born in 1943 in Salford, Lancashire. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at Camberwell, and Central Art Schools and at the London Film School.

His first feature film was BLEAK MOMENTS (1971), which won the Grand Prix at the Chicago and Locarno film festivals. This was followed by the full-length television films HARD LABOUR (1973), NUTS IN MAY (1975), THE KISS OF DEATH (1976), WHO'S WHO (1978), GROWN-UPS" (1980), HOME SWEET HOME (1982), MEANTIME (1983) and FOUR DAYS IN JULY (1984), which was shot entirely on location in Belfast.

His recent feature films HIGH HOPES (1988), LIFE IS SWEET (1990) and NAKED (1992) have been highly successful internationally, all winning numerous prestigious awards, including Best Director for NAKED at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival .

In May 1996, shortly after shooting CAREER GIRLS, Mike Leigh took his previous film SECRETS AND LIES to the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or and Best Actress for Brenda Blethyn.

Filmography:
1971 - BLEAK MOMENTS
1973 - HARD LABOUR
1975 - THE BIRTH OF THE GOALIE OF THE 2001 F.A. CUP FINAL, short
1975 - OLD CHUMS, short
1975 - PROBATION, short
1975 - AFTERNOON, short
1975 - A LIGHT SNACK, short
1975 - THE PERMISSIVE SOCIETY, short
1976 - KNOCK FOR KNOCK, short
1975 - NUTS IN MAY
1976 - THE KISS OF DEATH
1877 - ABIGAIL'S PARTY
1978 - WHO'S WHO
1980 - GROWN-UPS
1982 - HOME SWEET HOME
1983 - MEANTIME
1984 - FOUR DAYS IN JULY
1987 - THE SHORT AND CURLIES, short
1988 - HIGH HOPES
1991 - LIFE IS SWEET
1993 - NAKED
1995 - SECRETS AND LIES