Under the Cranes
Synopsis
"If you let it, a street will grow" says a voice in this film-poem which offers a lyrical, painterly defence of the everyday and a celebration of multiculturalism, even as it poses questions about the process of regeneration.
Shot on location in the London Borough of Hackney, the film interweaves rarely seen archive, super 16mm and super 8mm photography. Slow, still shots of streets, parks, cemeteries and markets are juxtaposed with the East London paintings of Leon Kossoff, Jock McFadyen and James MacKinnon.
With a script based on poet, Michael Rosen's play for voices, a heightened soundscape mixes documentary with poetry, music, song and location recordings. As we slip between past and present, real and imagined, famous and unknown "the world comes to Hackney": From Shakespeare in Shoreditch, to a Jamaican builder, from an 18th Century feminist abolitionist to a Turkish barber, from Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty" to the Jewish 43 Group taking on Oswald Mosley in Dalston, the audience is invited to apprehend the city as fragmentary and multi-layered, "past in the present, present in the past."
Details
- Year
- 2011
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 55 min 55 sec
- Format
- Super 16mm, 16mm archive, Super 8mm
- Director
-
Emma-Louise Williams 1st Feature
- Producer
- Michael Rosen
- Editor
- Hoping Chen
- Screenwriter
- Michael Rosen
- Director of Photography
- Conor Connolly
- Sound
- Linda Brenon
- Composer
- Piano performed by Liam Noble
- Principal cast
- Michael Rosen, Richard Earthy, Hamza Mohsin, Sally Armstrong, Eileen Pollock, Yetunde Oduwole, Nathan Thompson, Janie Booth, Altan R Koraltan, Cosh Omar, Ben Bazell, Cyril Nri, Gabby Wong, Joe Shefer
- Voice Director
- Christopher Preston
- Assistant Director
- Walter Stabb
- Location Sound Recordist
- Ross Adams
- Additional Editing
- Enric Junoy
- Camera Assistant
- Neal Caton
Production Status
Production Company
Xylonite
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