Project Detail

Death and the Mother

Name: Death and the Mother
Director: Ruth Lingford
Genre: Experimental, Literary Adaptation
Released: 1997
Duration: 10 min 37 sec

Death as a tall black cloaked figure with bony bird's feet, on white

Synopsis

A mother follows Death through a hostile winter landscape to win back her child, giving up her eyes and her hair on the way. Ruth Lingford's woodcut-like animation, drawn on an Amiga home computer, adapts Hans Christian Andersen's The Story of a Mother.

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Details

Year: 1997
Type of project: Shorts
Running time: 10 min 37 sec
Director: Ruth Lingford
Producer: Dick Arnall
Sound: Larry Sider, Colin Martin
Composer: Nigel Broadbent
Other Lead Creative(s): Ruth Lingford
Animation assistance: Lisa Flather, Michèle Smith, Alex Potts, George Lingford
Narrative advisor: Caroline Leaf
Performance advisor: Linda Kerr Scott
Digital advisor: Timo Dan Arnall
Story editing and sound: Larry Sider
Dubbing mixer: Colin Martin

Genre

Experimental Literary Adaptation

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Ownbrand for Channel 4

Producer: Dick Arnall (Finetake)
Contact: Finetake

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An ancient tale retold, of a city under siege and the terrible action taken by one woman to save it. The city elders are prepared to surrender, but Judith has other ideas. From the battlements she has watched Holofernes, the enemy general, and now she plans revenge and triumph. When they meet in his camp, they discover more complex desires and needs in each other, and during one night work out a passionate and dangerous relationship. By dawn Judith is victorious, but it is a bitter victory. Does patriotrism justify any action? Is Judith a hero or a maniac? Is Holofernes oppressor or victim? Is this a story about the sexiness of war or the savagery of sex? Can violence ever generate peace, or does it just keep the brutal cycles of war, defeat, victory and reprisal circling forever?

Woman Director