Projects in genres: Experimental

Synopsis

A vivid portrait of Tom Sietas, a world record in Static Apnea, the ability to hold one’s breath underwater. Combining underwater imagery with a contemporary dance sequence the film reveals what drives Tom to push his body to such physical extremes; for Tom to deny breath is to find life. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

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An elegy for the NASA/ESA spacecraft Cassini. Using light and dark, movement and stillness, the film combines digital video with manipulated archival images and 3D models to explore the relationship between man, machine and the natural environment.

Synopsis

A video collage comprising multiple threads loosely anchored around male maritime coming-of-age rites. Hardeep Pandhal raps to a score composed with Joe Howe as we are dragged through a cartoon world marked by male fears of floods, bordering between the homely and the gratuitous.

Synopsis

'Relic 1' forms part of Larry Achiampong's Relic Traveller: Phase 1, a multi-disciplinary project manifesting in performance, audio, moving image and prose. Taking place across various landscapes and locations, the project builds upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency and the body, and narratives of migration.

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An emotionally responsive, live action film, (with 3D immersive sound), which uses the player’s facial expressions to progress through a branching narrative and get through a riot alive. Inspired by real events, 'Riot' represents the global sense of unrest.

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A young woman wanders through the building of an afterparty, meditating on her life. She searches for a way out of her ruined and solitary world but cannot escape confronting her destiny.

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An experimental narrative film that paints a portrait of Japanese performance artist Ayumi Lanoire. The film opens as a telephone call between the subject and Person X, which meanders and leads the audience through the various layers that make up her persona leading one to question whether she is, in fact, a myth or reality.

Synopsis

An electrifying journey through the performance, private and public worlds of pop cultural icon Grace Jones. Jones’ bold aesthetic echoes throughout as director Sophie Fiennes creates a powerful cinematic experience, contrasting musical sequences with intimate personal footage and reaching beyond her iconic mask. The film includes unique performances of her iconic hits 'Slave To The Rhythm' and 'Pull Up To The Bumper' as well as more recent autobiographical tracks, 'Williams' Blood', 'This Is' and 'Hurricane'. These personal songs link to the film’s narrative that follows Grace on a holiday road trip across her native Jamaica where the story of her traumatic childhood are uncovered. Her stage is the fixed point to which the film returns, with 'Love Is The Drug' acting like an aria, bringing the film to its final and most touching scenes, including an encounter with French photographer Jean Paul Goude, father of Jones’ son Paulo and creator of her iconic album covers. This is a Grace we have not seen before, someone who reminds us of what it is to dare to be truly alive. In all her apparent contradictions, Grace Jones may appear an exception, but she is also a point of identification: she is the exception that proves the rule. Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2017 - TIFF Docs - World premiere

Synopsis

A short essay film by artist animator, Jessica Ashman. Using animation and recorded interviews of eight other women of colour artists, the film explores navigating the visual art and animation world as a black face in a white space.

Synopsis

Documenting the daily rehearsals and technical experiments of the performance piece, 'Give Me the Key'. Filmed daily over thirty days for a future live art performance, Ginger sets up her experiments in-between caring for her mother who is never seen but is ever present in another room. The strain of filming every day whilst caring for a mother near the end of her life becomes too much. After a trip out to the pub and recovering from a dementia outburst, Ginger breaks down on camera and admits for the first time that she is her mother's full time carer and not the Hollywood creative she once was. What unfolds is the colliding of performance and the every day as the artist slowly loses her sense of self. I Have Lost Myself is a powerful and disturbing statement on family relationships and responsibility.

Synopsis

A documentary portrait of Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research (Braziers), the longest-running secular resident community in the UK. Centred upon insights from current residents and members, the film interweaves scenes of daily life with the natural features, architectural characteristics and diverse cultural history of the community. Set in the wider context of sustainable living and the economics of post-capitalism, Intentional Community explores the 'sociobiological' ideas of Braziers' founders, who established the community in 1950 as a social experiment in group co-existence. Today, Braziers continues to explore and live-out ideas of co-existence, collective work and our place in nature. Edited with a layered, non-linear approach, the composite film makes correspondences between the past and present, combing interior and exterior spaces of the gothic manor house with material from Braziers’ archive of photographs, audio recordings and film. Archival footage includes scenes from a 1964 Situationist gathering, attended by writers Alexander Trocchi, Jeff Nuttall, artist John Latham and psychiatrist R.D. Laing. Intentional Community also explores Braziers’ links to the Common Wealth political party, the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, Kibbo Kift, and Grith Fyrd peace camps, reflecting Braziers’ deep-rooted, progressive social values, educational ideas, ecological awareness and connections to the counterculture.

Synopsis

“The angry sleeper stalks his dreams/hard from night to night”. Dirk Bouts's 1470 painting of demons carrying sinners off to Hell is the starting point for this not-quite-serious animated nightmare. Pachelbel's famous canon played on a musical box is the accompaniment.