Projects in genres: Experimental

Synopsis

LOOK THEN BELOW was filmed in Somerset, a place transformed into a coloured, mist-enveloped island in an oily ocean with a cave basking in a subterranean glow. Time seems to stand still there. After SLOW ACTION and URTH, this is the final part of a trilogy developed with American SF author Mark von Schlegell. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 - Bright Future - Ammodo Tiger Short Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

The starting point for this video piece is an image of artist Maryam Jafri's sculpture 'Anxiety', that has been turned into a stock photo for licensing on a major photographic agency's website without the artist's prior knowledge or permission. A voiceover traces the work’s trajectory from a readymade sculpture for sale at an art fair to a stock photo for licensing online and finally, to a video commissioned by a Kunstahalle, a space meant to guarantee the autonomy of art. The work reflects upon the role of originality, artist labour and copyright in our culture of sampling and remixing. Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2020 -Bright Future

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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'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.

Synopsis

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)