Conceptually informed by artist Manuela De Laborde’s active filmgoing, this piece takes as its point of departure prop sculptures which are transformed both through hybrid techniques of framing, lighting, and superimposition and by being projected in an enclosed, silent architectural space.
Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2016 - Wavelengths - World premiere
A reinterpretation of Shakespeare's Othello; an exploration of Shakespeare's intentions when writing Othello, exploring the play's racial themes in a historical and contemporary setting and drawing wider parallels between immigration and blackness in the UK today.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Create Strand
The idea for the film originated from the eight objects that were traditionally given in England to welcome a new child into the world; Egg, Coal, Evergreen, Salt, Candle, Bread, Coin and Silver Ring. Each symbolic gift has been the theme of a public event, created by artist Clare Whistler, in collaboration with leading artists, musicians, poets and documented from 2005-2015 by established filmmakers.
'Gifts' is an interpretation of the eight events, directed by Nichola Bruce. The film brings together English traditions of ritual and landscape.
Financed by the gift economy movement and Arts Council England.
Moving in together confronts a couple with inevitable adjustments to their personal autonomy. The dialogue employs the poetic verse structure of the Pantoum, which imitates the entanglement of their commitment and acts as the language of a joined organism: a relationship.
Official Selection Rotterdam International Film Festival 2017
TET-STADT is a journey into an unrealized utopian urban project from 1917 conceived by the German biscuits manufacturer Bahlsen - a massive industrial development based on ancient Egyptian buildings. By excavating strange moments in German history it presents a meditation on irrationality and nationalism through the legacy of Expressionism.
Close observations around Southend-on-Sea, a small English town along the Thames estuary, reveal not only everyday streets, everyday birds, unflagging tides, mud and sky, but also prize-winning Indian curries, an encyclopedic universe of hats and a nearly lost world of proto-punk music.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2017 - New Frontier
Exploring supressed aggression and ambition. The outcomes of society’s moralistic expectations and repressing the competitive pressures placed on young girls.
A video piece exploring the connections between thinking and drawing. Filmed with Mina Pegourie, the cleaner of an artist in residence programme that Ana Mendes attended in France in 2014. Since she is unable to read or to write, Mina uses drawing as a tool for everyday life.
Unhomely Street follows a female protagonist in a state of fugue following a head injury as she wanders an alienating city underbelly of clubs and free parties. Through recollections of anti-capitalist conversations, historical information about wartime atrocity, and human brutality, she searches for hope in an increasingly frightening, subjective landscape.
Lorraine believes there's a lost portal to another world in Essex. As she explores time and space with her friends and family will she be proven wrong or be vindicated?
“This film will be a Cult Classic” Tim Noakes- Edior, Dazed and Confused
“The craziest thing I’ve ever worked on.” Ceephax Acid Crew – Dance Music Producer
In this brand new subgenre of surreal British comedy filmmaking, Lorraine Willy of Planet Earth believes there's an ancient lost portal built by Amen Rah somewhere in deep Essex that leads to Sirius. As she explores, time, space and greasy chicken wings with her friends and family, will she be proven wrong by those who think they hold the secrets to her madness or will she be vindicated in her unstoppable quest for the truth?
