Projects in genres: Experimental

Synopsis

A young woman treks around a London park on a Summers day. Hit and miss meetings ensue while her ruminations on life and dreams may not stand up in the pedestrian chaos. Can she figure fantasy from reality? Is the journey better than arrival?

Synopsis

Frantz Fanon was a revolutionary, writer and psychiatrist, whose classic publications 'The Wretched of the Earth' (1961) and 'Black Skin White Mask' (1952) became founding texts of the decolonization movement. This film examines Fanon's theories of identity and race, and traces his involvement in the independence struggle in Algeria.
Digitally remastered in 2K through the BFI Unlocking Film Heritage programme.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand - 2K Restoration World premiere

Synopsis

Memory mixes with desire as a museum attendant is caught up in sado-masochistic fantasies inspired by a 19th Century painting of slaves in chains called 'Scene on the Coast of Africa'. The man remembers his past as a singer and delivers Dido's lament from Purcell's opera.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Panorama 40

Synopsis

Based on the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Derek Jarman's nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous. THE GARDEN was originally screened in the Forum programme of the Berlinale in 1991, garnering an OCIC Award - Honourable Mention.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Archival Constellations

Synopsis

Mona Hatoum left Beirut in 1975 for a short visit to London. When war broke out in the Lebanon she found it impossible to return. In this video, letters from her mother in Beirut, written in Arabic, move across the screen. They are read aloud, in English, by the artist. Hatoum's mother is also heard, speaking openly about her feelings and sexuality, accompanied by images of her in the shower.

Hatoum's video suggests exile and displacement. She has said it also challenges 'the stereotype of Arab women as passive, mother as non-sexual being'.

Synopsis

Young men find themselves scattered and defencelessly exposed to a merciless sun. Their gaze moves off searchingly into the distance. Deserted places appear to offer vague promises of refuge. On a prison wall, an explosive image of desire emerges, full of hope for freedom. Constantine Giannaris relishes in mixing light and colour with the textures of Super 8 and video footage to express the thoughts of the poet Jean Genet. Greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic, he addresses the desire for love as well as the threat of isolation and death in a restless cinematographic delirium.
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Panorama 40

Synopsis

An epicene angel flutters its wings and smokes a cigarette in this ejaculatory study of frustration, torment, stupidity and insolence. With Cerith Wyn Evans as the angel and music by Michael Nyman. Made at the Royal College of Art in 1985.

Synopsis

An abstract look at daily life in London.
A restoration by Cinémathèque Suisse of an unfinished version of Hans Richter's EVERY DAY (1929), found at the archives of the Cinémathèque in 2012.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Treasures Strand