Projects in genres: Experimental

Synopsis

Bookended by the 2011 London riots, Benedict Seymour’s dramatically, politically urgent new film retells the story of Chris Marker’s 'La Jetée'. A man has been sent back into the past as a way of rescuing the future, his tale told by way of the Narrator who riffs on familiar film dialogue and contemporary references – unpicking the political implications of his journey and our retro obsessions. A collage, narrative, essay film hybrid, 'Dead the Ends', plunders some fifty years of cinema – including dystopian sci-fi – and uses emojis and gifs as ways of exploring the undercurrents of historical and current visual language, as well as present entrenched, systemic inequality. Cross-currents of thought and broad swathes of material are incisively manoeuvred, whilst, in its intellectually and dramatically gripping shape and scope, the piece feels part-situationist, part-Borgesian. It asks, in richly creative fashion, how did we get here? (LFF brochure) Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

Experimental artist and auteur Andrew Kotting creates a groundbreaking crossover between narrative film and contemporary art piece, based on the award-winning play by Hattie Naylor. The film is inspired by the true story of Ivan Mishukov, who walked out of his Moscow apartment at the age of four and spent two years living on the city streets where he was adopted by a pack of wild dogs. In the recession-ravaged city, Ivan’s human world was dominated by deprivation and violence; his only hope was to turn to feral dogs for company, protection and warmth. Kotting’s spellbinding and utterly original story of survival conjures the streets of Moscow in the 1990s through the eyes of a child, drawing on a range of innovative modes and techniques to produce a montage essay on the state of the world. Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival 2018 - International premiere

Synopsis

From the earliest days of movie-making to the present day, through rare and unseen footage, we see the changing relationship the British have with their land. From images of local celebrations and festivals to agricultural practices through the seasons, village life and lost crafts. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - World premiere

Synopsis

Ancient footage of an old tale hauntingly re-emerges. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

Across the water on the island, four individuals experience the end of life. Showing rarely seen and intensely private events, the film follows the progression of illness for each character and, for one, the last days and hours of life, the moment of death, and after death care. A lyrical, slow cinema description of the temporality and phenomena of dying, this film sensitively witnesses the transition away from personhood. This is a palliative island, the Isle of Wight, an enigmatic landscape where all around rituals persist. Parallel to bedside vigils and the rhythm of breathing, we see rescue owls on the hospice ward, the rugged coastline, and the constant ferry arrivals. A choir rehearses Brahm’s 'German Requiem'. In the hospital pathology lab, microscopic close-ups of cancer show the interior of the bodies, our biology, our creatureliness. Death is presented as natural and everyday but also unspeakable and strange. Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival 2018 - International premiere

Synopsis

A poetic study of the life and work of artist Margaret Benyon, pioneer in the artistic use of holography. Giving voice to the unsung legacy of a pioneering woman artist, 'A Blemished Code' is an impassioned meditation on the representation of female artists, the balancing of creative and domestic life, and the inherent tensions of being a woman working with new technology. The inner life of the subject is represented throughout by a brilliant musical score featuring sung script and compositions by Stevie Jones, Mai Mai, and Leigh Ferguson. (LFF brochure) Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

A haunting metaphorical take on the physical and mental isolation of the migrant experience. Inspired by the director’s father’s experience of being trapped in Greece’s Ellinikon Airport without a passport in 1977, the film follows a week in the life of a man who has been living in limbo at an airport for a decade. All promises of movement are ultimately met with stasis in this profound evocation of our epoch of desperate migration. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

Agile cross-cutting between images shows animals hunting in the snow. The soundtrack is a Roma song celebrating the coming of spring. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Synopsis

Victoria Sin unapologetically takes up space when they are in drag, giving spotlight and agency to the daily labours of femininity that are invisible and policed. Commissioned by NOWNESS, this film demonstrates the transformative power of Victoria's drag, positioning Victoria where they belong - in cinematic grandeur, with a gaze that they own. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Create Strand - Short Film Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

Tracing the movements of the New Silk Road, this essay-documentary follows distribution networks which are expanding across vast regions between China and Europe. Mapped through footage, interviews, field recordings and found WeChat videos; government efforts to speed up the movement of trade collide with more-than-human choreographies of sand, people and goods. 'Paralogisticians' hack infrastructural space through transnational guanxi and long distance friendships. Desert sands made restless by Westerly winds disrupt roads, railways and sometimes engulf whole cities. Through a disorientation of the senses – bodies and landscapes become mobile. Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival 2018 - World premiere

Synopsis

As our planet is in deep shit (sheeeeeeeee-it) this animated video reflects that shit - quite literally, in fact, as again-again-again (we eat the world and the world eats us) takes the viewer on a ride on an intestinal highway, passing lakes of glossy dung, as if Charlie’s chocolate factory has just turned into shit. The video is a roller coaster ride through different scenes of social decay, violence and riots, set over the rolling hills of a post-Brexit catastrophe, a crisis which has turned this part of the world into a big load of shit. Sheeeeeeeee-it! Heavy shit which goes down lightly, as layers of destruction pour into a well-crafted narrative of post-millennia-anxiety with sweetly sick humor.

Synopsis

An experimental abstract film. Created to a sound track composed by the director, Michael Salkeld. Half the sound track is acoustic violin half electronic keyboard.