Project Detail

The Artist Who Disappeared

Synopsis

When artist Sergei Ivanov moves with his partner Tszman Chan to the remote Scottish island of Papa Westray, they start an International Arts Festival, bringing an eclectic mix of artists, performers and musicians to the island from as far afield as Japan and Norway. With the festival entering its seventh year they invite their friend, filmmaker David Kew to make a documentary about their extraordinary life on the island.
But when Sergei suddenly disappears without trace on Papa Westray three months into filming, the filmmaker is forced to embark on a profound journey of discovery and contemplation. As the filmmaker interviews those left behind, each in their own way trying to make sense of Sergei’s vanishing, the film gravitates towards Tszman as she attempts to come to terms with her grief by creating an elegiac and moving tribute to Sergei on the island.
Shot over several years, THE ARTIST WHO DISAPPEARED includes profoundly moving scenes with Tszman and their daughter Snaedis in the wake of Sergei’s disappearance, interviews with islanders, artists and close family members. THE ARTIST WHO DISAPPEARED goes to the very heart of what it means to be an artist, how we judge success and failure, and the nature of loss.

Details

Year
2024
Type of project
Features
Running time
75 min
Format
HD Video
Director
David Kew
Producer
David Kew, Sarah Hamilton, Tsz Man Chan
Editor
David Kew
Director of Photography
David Kew
Composer
James Hesford

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Q Films Limited

Hermitage Moorings
16 Wapping High Street
London
E1W 1NG

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Spacewoman Spacewoman

Director: Hannah Berryman

Year: 2024

A landmark feature documentary about astronaut Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command the Space Shuttle. Eileen’s incredible journey starts with her smalltown beginnings, sees her smash through many glass ceilings, and culminates in four dramatic space shuttle missions, the last being possibly the most dangerous and most important of them all. At its heart the film is the moving human drama of one family, where a mother’s extraordinary career takes us straight to the big philosophical question of what is the level of acceptable risk in human endeavour? This film celebrates Commander Collins’ trailblazing NASA career which opened the way for women to become spacecraft pilots and commanders, and proved a perfect riposte to a previous generation of male astronauts who thought there was no place for women to lead the way in space. Official Selection DOC NYC 2024 - World premiere Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025 - European premiere

Third Person (Plural) Third Person (Plural)

Director: Aikaterini Gegisian

Year: 2023

A cinematic essay composed of over 200 postwar U.S. informational films and newsreels from the Library of Congress and the National Archives. What begins as an inquiry into America’s vision of early European integration becomes a feminist re-reading of the masculine gaze that shaped the postwar world. Through archival images once used to define ‘the global’ and ‘the other,’ the film exposes the links between Hollywood, propaganda, and the military-industrial complex in constructing Western modernity. By casting a female gaze on these histories, THIRD PERSON (PLURAL) challenges the authority of the archive and reveals the unseen many who inhabit it - the collective ‘third person’ who looks back at the camera.

Monsters Monsters

Director: Andy Field, Beckie Darlington

Year: 2025

Created in collaboration with local children in one of the most environmentally fragile areas of the UK, this experimental documentary repurposes the tropes of Hollywood monster movies to explore young people’s real feelings and fears through an imaginary framework. This fantasy apocalypse becomes a safe space for the children to reflect on adaptation, resilience and an uncertain future.