In the heady rush to embrace the vast spectrum of possibilities opened up by new digital technologies, we forget just how magical a medium celluloid is. A fragile body that wears the traces of the artist’s hand and the scratches of its past life, the filmstrip speaks of presence, time and materiality. This programme presents a selection of new works that draw attention to film as a physical entity and celebrate filmmaking as an artisanal practice.

Screening with:

Along with the Phoenix

• Masha Godovannaya /
• Russian Federation, Netherlands /
• 2008 /
• 11 mins

Conceived as a free cinematic improvisation based on the myth of the phoenix, this film continually draws the eye to the texture of the image.

Director: Masha Godovannaya
Producer: Esther Urlus
Editor: Masha Godovannaya

Autumnal

• Scott Nyerges /
• USA /
• 2008 /
• 6 mins

Applying acrylic paints and chemicals directly to the filmstrip creates fantastical landscapes of vibrant colours and textures.

Director: Scott Nyerges
Sound Production: Mike Vernusky

Deux Regards

• Kangmin Kim /
• USA, South Korea /
• 2008 /
• 3 mins

At the interstice between materiality and immateriality, direct work on the filmstrip is digitally rendered, creating tension between surface and depth.

Director: Kangmin Kim
Producer: Kangmin Kim
Scriptwriter: Kangmin Kim
Editor: Kangmin Kim
DoP: Kangmin Kim
Production Designer: Kangmin Kim
Sound Production: Minkyu Kim
Music: Minkyu Kim

Film Quartet / Polyframe

• Antoni Pinent /
• Spain /
• 2008 /
• 9 mins

Using footage from a range of Hollywood films, this “cinematographic bomb” literally cuts into the concept of the unified frame.

Director: Antoni Pinent
Producer: Antoni Pinent
Editor: Antoni Pinent
DoP: Antoni Pinent

Film- Landscape- People: an Exquisite Corpse

• Angela Joosse, Marcia Connolly /
• Canada /
• 2009 /
• 3 mins

Inspired by the Surrealist game and presented as a triptych, this self-reflexive film was exposed three times and hand-processed.

Directors: Angela Joosse, Marcia Connolly
Producers: Angela Joosse, Marcia Connolly
Scriptwriter: N/A
Editor: in camera editing
DoP: Angela Joosse, Marcia Connolly
Production Designer: N/A
Sound Production: Jesse Laine
Music: N/A

George

• Luke Fowler /
• UK /
• 2009 /
• 4 mins

“George was an attempt to reconsider the basic components of my approach to filmmaking and boil them down to their bare essentials.”

Director: Luke Fowler

Holy Woods

• Cecile Fontaine /
• France /
• 2008 /
• 8 mins

A collage of found footage in which shots of insects in close-up are intercut with snippets of a documentary about woodcutters.

Director: Cecile Fontaine

K (Exil)

• Frederique Devaux /
• France /
• 2008 /
• 8 mins

Fragmented images – alternating between positive and negative, complementary and contradictory – tell the story of women in Kabylia.

Director: Frederique Devaux

Mondrian Sprockets

• Steven Andrew McIntyre /
• Mexico, Australia /
• 2007 /
• 3 mins

Film sprockets directly stenciled onto the filmstrip steal the show in this self-conscious nod to the renowned painter.

Director: Steven Andrew McIntyre
Producer: Steve McIntyre
Editor: Steve McIntyre

Mustek Metra

• Tim Sidell /
• UK /
• 2009 /
• 8 mins

A projection anomaly is exploited to phantasmic effect, as a lone woman in the Prague underground hovers between the real and the imaginary.

Director: Tim Sidell
Editor: Tim Sidell
DoP: Tim Sidell
Sound Production: Tim Sidell, Adam Bushell
Music: Adam Bushell

Phantogram

• Kerry Laitala /
• USA /
• 2008 /
• 9 mins

Ghostly black and white images flutter across the screen, continually drawing attention to the hand-painted surface of the celluloid.

Director: Kerry Laitala
Producer: Kerry Laitala
Editor: Kerry Laitala
DoP: Kerry Laitala

Sad Lexicon

• James Cole /
• USA /
• 2009 /
• 7 mins

An exploration of the viewer's position – in this case by manipulating found television footage – whilst watching a baseball game, as in the 1910 poem to which the title refers.

Director: James Cole
Producer: James Cole
Editor: James Cole
DoP: James Cole

The Sound of Crickets

• Justin Chouinard /
• USA /
• 2008 /
• 6 mins

In the spirit of Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight, this work lets nature speak through the material of film.

Director: Justin Chouinard
Producer: Justin Chouinard