Projects in categories: Artist Project and Video / Experimental

Synopsis

A monster film with no monsters. Inspired by the existence of taxonomies of monsters at the heart of Early Modern European science, the film explores and reinterprets a way of seeing the natural world that is almost impossible to imagine from today’s vantage point. Early Modern naturalists were guided by a logic in which scientific truths were discovered through visual analogy. The word ‘monster’ comes from the latin ‘monstrare’, meaning to show, to reveal, to demonstrate. A DEMONSTRATION picks up on these themes in a poetic exploration of the boundaries of sight and the metamorphosis of form.
Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Berlinale Shorts - World premiere

Synopsis

Documenting Summer Solstice at Glastonbury Tor in Somerset.
For many, Glastonbury Tor is the spiritual and mythological heart of England, acting as both the geographical centrepiece to Arthurian legend and Christianity's arrival into Britain.
Shot in 2019, a year in which national divides were embellished by further populist rhetoric surrounding the country's exit from the European Union, A THIN PLACE acts as an alternative catalyst to reflect on dialogues surrounding English nationalism, identity and Romanticism.

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A love letter to the late David Robilliard – a collage of his poems and archive visuals, with a voice-over by Russell Tovey.

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'Bad Man Nuh Flee' is a collection of audio/visual notes on oppression, Black liberation and the white imagination.

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The repeated rituals of an autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) online performer and her viewers.

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Falling in love is hard in this powerful adaptation of Neil Hilborn's poem OCD.
BAFTA Film Awards 2021 - Nomination - Best British Short Film

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1872: Lorenzo Lawrence walked an elephant south/until the name and walk were one,/noteworthy as the gentle beast himself, called/Maharajah…

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Ominous cinegrams of Albrecht Dürer’s 'Melencolia' print intercut, like cascading scythes, with depictions of a woman in a field, evoking repetitions that exist in harvest rituals, as well as in gestures of madness. Spectres of familial anxieties creep into this loose take on the myth of Poludnica (noonwraith or Lady Midday), a Slavic harvest spirit that could cause madness in those who wandered the fields alone.

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A chronicle of personal experiences taking place in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The film journeys through natural, industrial, and militarized landscapes as a disembodied voice-over weaves childhood memories, geology, ecology and politics into one narrative.

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The source clip is taken from a cult science fiction film where the world is literally turned on its side. The audio track is cut along with the moving image and superimposed 5 times reverberating speech and effects tracks.

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A b&w 16mm artists' essay film, drawn from the book ‘Republic Of Dogs / Republic Of Birds' by the poet Stephen Watts, exploring landscape, history, memory and the power of words to celebrate and resist.

“For four decades, poet, translator and activist Stephen Watts has been the quietly urgent, profoundly committed voice of the marginalised and the overlooked, whether person or place. He understands that the true ethical centre that matters lies at the edge, whether in the pull of outpost islands or the common ground of migrant streets. Now he has found his collaborative equal in the engaged 16mm filmmaker Huw Wahl, who has translated the text of Watt’s book-length prose poem Republic Of Dogs / Republic Of Birds into a luminous feature-length documentary essay of remarkable beauty and spirited attention. THE REPUBLICS moves from the early 1980s to the present, and from London’s Isle of Dogs and Scotland’s Western Isles to the mountains of Northern Italy. It is one of the most impressive artists’ films of recent years, whose own poetry speaks as honestly and eloquently as that of the writer it portrays.” (Gareth Evans, Moving Image Curator, Whitechapel Gallery)

Synopsis

Takako Shirawa has spent the last 36 years creating an extraordinary day centre for autistic people in Abeno, Osaka. Nestling on a quiet neighbourhood corner, Atelier Corners began life as a family run sanctuary for local autistic children and has developed into a pioneering site of artistic experiment with its members becoming renowned artists, exhibited in Japan and worldwide. Award winning artist and filmmaker Richard Butchins (himself disabled) visited the centre with disabled dancer Kazuyo Morita and spent two years documenting and creating an award winning video installation about the artists and their home.
This film shows the artists, the art and the woman that made it possible. It’s a testament to integration and the remarkable minds of the people that inhabit the building that is Atelier Corners. The film is part documentary and part artists’ moving image, a reflective and thoughtful account exploring the experience of disability in Japan, what is positive in the act of creation and the struggle against social exclusion, and how to foster and nurture the spirit of human life in a country that has traditionally excluded and hidden its disabled population from view.