One of Life's Players is an experimental short which I shot on Super8, a format that has intrigued me for a long time, it is based around a prose I wrote a few years ago. Written in the prose are a number of quite upfront and powerful statements. 'in the circle of life we co-exist with an assemblage of unadulterated attractions and fascinations'. Through the diverse and haunting beauty of film I wanted to depict images that an audience can relate to events in there lives and the surrounding world we live in. It has not plot and perhaps to some it might be hard to understand.
One of Life's Players will be reminiscent of films such as Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1992), Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983) and Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929), which don't really have a traditional narrative drive. These experimental masterpieces rely on the use of stunning cinematography to allow the audience to create their own story. One of Life's Players portrays images such as an empty room with just a fireplace, and a photograph spattered with blood to depict how life can often take a turn for the worst. Sometimes a lifetime can often feel like the blink of any eye, One of Life's Players depicts this by using images like a young woman's eye, which transforms into an old woman's eye and other similar juxtapositions. Although some of the imagery isn't always blatantly obvious. I'm hoping perhaps One of Life's Players will fuel thoughts about how at times we as a fast moving species tend to take the planet and its abundant fascinations for granted.
On the Greek island of Patmos, St John the Divine had a vision and wrote The Apocalypse. The cave in which he lived and worked still stands, and archaeologists from all over the world have explored these hills and valleys for 2,000 years in search of great historical treasure.
Now on this sun-splashed island Katerina careens her bicycle down a steep hill while her nine-year-old daughter, Agapoula, exhilarated, hangs on for dear life. Katerina is unmarried, owns the village taverna, and lives a fulfilled if simple life. The last thing she needs is an unsettling romance, but that's exactly what she's about to get.
Down in the harbour, the ferry pulls in to the docks. Tourists, shoppers, locals returning home stream into the village - and one stranger, Eric, an American archeologist who has come to the island in search of a lost biblical artefact that his father had searched for in vain. Tierney, the resident archeologist and local character, shows Eric the ropes. When Eric and Katerina meet - Opa!
But the course of true love is never straight, and soon Eric determines that the ancient chalice he seeks is most likely buried right under Katerina's beloved taverna. The Mayor and the townspeople want the acclaim and tourists that the chalice will bring - Tierney needs further funding to keep his ongoing project alive - and Eric wants to fulfill his (and his late father's) life-long quest.
Dealing with the loss of his father, eight-year-old Louie is taken on a mysterious journey in his dreams, far from the safety of his home, into a dark and scary old forest. Desperately searching for a way out he becomes impossibly lost, drawn in deeper and deeper, until he is discovered by the forests immortal guardian, Ordan.
Orpheus the greatest musician ever. A Rock star like no other he has gone into hiding. However, stirred into a search for his wife Eurydice. He embarks on a quest that will take him to and through the land of death itself.
Funny and bizarre, this is the heart-warming tale of an unlikely family striving to achieve spiritual fulfilment in the murky waters of the 21st century.
In a quiet corner of England a former rabbi is living a remarkable life based on the ancient patriarchy of the Old Testament. Six years ago, God told the rabbi that he was to become a Hebrew King, and like a good patriarch, take multiple wives. Now he raises horses, runs four second-hand furniture shops in Brighton and Hove and lives with seven women who, while not legally his spouses, believe their union is sanctioned by God. Each seeks a different sort of spiritual fulfilment: from Chava, widowed after 25 years of marriage and the oldest of the wives, to Tracy, who has been banished from the house for resisting Philip’s patriarchal role. As the film progresses, the filmmaker gets extraordinary close to the family but reserves judgement, preferring to present them with all their foibles, strengths and contradictions.
Unemployed Lee is an inside kind of guy, living in a bedsit hell. He loathes the shrill communual phone, but nobody else can be bothered to answer it. Not even Prentis, it's almost always for him, a girl called Nadine. There's been pain between these two and Lee's about to get right in the middle of it.
'and I knew there was something wrong with the girl the first time I killed her'.
A pumped-up, overblown thriller of a teen flick which gets rudely invaded by sci-fi as the class reject stalks the prom queen and gets more than was advertised on the packaging.
Old age encroaches and Jack is threatened with separation from his beloved wife, when a chance meeting with a young thug brings a disturbing resolution.
Plenty of Spoons prompts its audience to consider the issues of community care, respect across the generations and how our society values its elders.
Too insecure to approach the girl of his dreams, Danny takes a job at the local multiplex where she works, only to find out that his first day is her last. After some spectacular early failures he resorts to drastic action by enlisting the help of the chief projectionist, a guru-like figure who unfortunately no longer sees any difference between real life and reel life. This is cinema - but not as you know it.
Sangeeta journeys from India to be with her loved one, but on arrival the unthinkable happens. Poppy explores grief and betrayal, creating tangible textures, emotion and atmosphere, in an alarmingly lyrical and mature short film.
