FEATURE FILMS
An exciting mix of features, from the very new to the quite old. We are very pleased to be presenting Burning Ice (2010), a new documentary feature covering a voyage off the coast of Greenland, introduced by the film’s producer, David Buckland from Cape Farewell. We also have a special preview screening of Louise Milne’s Druids (2011), alongside classic ‘elemental’ films including A Night To Remember (1958), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975) and the hauntingly beautiful Korean film Why has Bodhi Dharma left for the East (1989). Artist films feature prominently, with special screenings of Ruth MacLennan’s Anarcadia (2011), Julie Brook’s That Untravell’d World (1997), John Gzinisch’s Sound Aspects of Material Elements (2010), and Ben Rivers’ Slow Action (2010), in addition to the classic documentary Rivers and Tides (2001), about the elemntal sculptural work of Andy Goldsworthy.
See below for a full listing.
That Untravell'd World
Directed by: Julie Brook
Running time: 00:30:00
Year: 1997
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
That Untravell’d World shows the landscape work that was developed by Scottish artist Julie Brook when she lived for over a period of 3 years on the uninhabited west coast of Jura. The elements, and processes of making and destruction, are integral to the works which include temporal sculptures involving stone and ice fire-stacks, the wind and the sea.
This film will be screened as part of a double bill of artists films, alongside Sound Aspects Of Material Elements by John Grzinich.
Julie Brook (Scotland) and John Grzinich (Estonia) will participate in an audience Q&A.
Biography:
1997 ‘that untravell’d world’
1999 ‘the land’s edge also’ - living and working on the uninhabited island of Mingulay, Outer Hebrides
2005 ‘An Dealbh Mòr’ (the big picture) –visual art and performance project with Bùnsgoil Shlèite
2010 ‘Air Iomlaid’ (on exchange) - 18 month visual art project and exchange with Bùnsgoil Shlèite, Skye and Tollcross Primary school , Edinburgh with Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
2011/12 Film to be edited about working in the desert in Libya and Namibia to be shown at Dovecot Studios in 2012
Artist's website: http://www.juliebrook.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 16:30
Tickets: £4 (also includes'Sound Aspects of Material Elements' by John Gzinich)
Sound Aspects of Material Elements
Directed by: John Grzinich
Running time: 00:30:00
Year: 2010
Country: Estonia
Synopsis:
Using sound as the primary signifier, this film shows a specific approach to the artistic use of sound. Covering a 3 year period of the authors personal research and collaborations with a number of close colleagues, the film documents in-situ processes of exploration and sonification of the landscape along with the numerous objects and structures found there. All the sound recordings emphasize how the combinations of certain materials (metal, wood, glass) with natural elements (water, wind fire), take on alchemical characteristics as we listen in.
This film will be screened alongside That Untravell'd World by Julie Brook as part of an artists' double bill.
John Grzinich (Estonia) and Julie Brook (Scotland) will participate in an audience Q&A.
Biography:
John Grzinich (b.1970) has been working with sound as an artistic medium since the early 1990s. He lives and works in Estonia with MoKS a non-profit artist run space. Grzinich’s poetics and aesthetics are derived from the inspirational sources of experimental music and the psycho-acoustics of natural and architectural space be it through found phenomenon or intervention. He captures, decomposes and combines sonic, morphological and chromatic aspects of natural and social processes, seeking their mutual relations and production of new meanings.
Artist's website: http://maaheli.ee
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 16:30
Tickets: £4 (also includes 'That Untravell'd World' by Julie Brook)
Burning Ice
Directed by: Peter Gilbert
Running time: 1:19:00
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
In September 2009, documentary filmmaker Peter Gilbert joined more than 40 observers – including musicians KT Tunstall, Laurie Anderson, Jarvis Cocker, Martha Wainwright, Robyn Hitchcock, Ryuichi Sakamoto and writers Suzan-Lori Parks and Andrew Revkin – on an ice-breaking ship for a nine-day voyage off the coast of Greenland with artist-led climate change project, Cape Farewell. Their goal was to see, experience and contemplate the effects of climate change first-hand – and to begin a creative conversation with the rest of the world about one of the most important and pressing issues facing the future of humanity.
David Buckland, Director of Cape Farewell and producer of Burning Ice, will introduce the film and participate in an audience Q&A after the screening.
Biography:
Since 2001 David Buckland has created and now directs the Cape Farewell project, bringing artists, scientists and educators together to collectively address and raise awareness about climate change. The artists have already been the subject of a film for The Culture Show and a BBC documentary. The art resulting from these fruitful journeys has been shown at the Natural History Museum, London, the Liverpool Biennial and the Sage Gateshead, Newcastle.
David is a designer, artist and film-maker whose lens-based works have been exhibited in numerous galleries in London, Paris and New York and collected by the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Getty Collection, Los Angeles amongst others.
In 1999 David presented a one-man show of digitally mastered portraits of performers at London's National Portrait Gallery, which attracted over 100,000 visitors. Three new commissions, all in the USA, from MasterCard, Vanguard Insurance and Royal Caribbean have just been completed. Each entailed huge digital constructions on glass for the new atriums of each company.
Artist's website: http://www.capefarewell.com/expeditions/2008.html
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 19:30
Tickets: £4
The Druids: Travels in Deep England
Directed by: Louise Milne
Running time: 01:07:02
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Louise Milne’s new documentary takes us on a poetic journey through the magickal darklands of deepest England. The film follows a group of modern Druids and their friends over the course of the ritual year. Shot at Stanton Drew stone circle, and in the wild beauty of King Arthur’s West Country, The Druids explains the appeal of this nature faith, just recently recognised as an official religion in the UK. Milne explores the basic elements of Druidry, its history, major festivals, rituals, myths and legends, while evoking the Druids' sense of spiritual connection to the land, giving us an understanding of what it is to be Druid in the 21st century.
There will be an audience Q&A with Louise Milne after the screening.
Biography:
Louise Milne is a writer and filmmaker based in Edinburgh. She is the author of an acclaimed study of the painter Pieter Bruegel, Carnivals and Dreams, and is the director - with Sean Martin - of two documentaries, Lanterna Magicka: Bill Douglas & the Secret History of Cinema and A Boat Retold.
Artist's website: http://www.druidsmovie.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 14:00
Tickets: £4
Rivers and Tides
Directed by: Thomas Riedelsheimer
Running time: 01:30:00
Year: 2001
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy fashions extraordinary sculptures from wood, ice, leaves and stone that are designed to move, change and erode over time. Following Goldsworthy from his home in Dumfriesshire to Canada and France, director Thomas Riedelsheimer records the painstaking construction of such ephemeral pieces as an igloo made of driftwood, a stone wall laced with wool and the sculptor’s signature rock cones.
Biography:
Thomas Riedelsheimer was born in 1963; studied at the Academy for Film and Television in Munich (1984 - 1991). Since 1986 free-lance author, director and cameraman in Germany and abroad (Somalia, Tanzania, South Africa, New Zealand, Latvia, Russia, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Canada, Scotlant, etc.); lecturer at seminars on cinematography at the Film Academy in Munich. Films include 'Rivers and Tides - Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time', 'Metamorphosen' (Metamorphoses), 'Lhasa un der Geist Tibets', (Lhasa and the Spirit of Tibet) 'Schweben Heist Liben' (Floating Means Love) tree people beyond the norm, "Bildschirmherrschaft" (Government on Air) portrait of the world economic summit of 1992 in Munich, and 'Sponsae Christi" (The Brides of Christ).
Artist's website: http://www.riversandtides.co.uk
Venue: Hawick Film and Video Group Cinema, 8, Croft Road
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 12:00
Tickets: £4
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?
Directed by: Bae Yong-Kyun
Running time: 02:17:00
Year: 1989
Country: Korea South
Synopsis:
A classic of meditative cinema, Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? was seven years in the making, filmed with one camera and hand-edited by Bae Yong-Kyun. The film follows the lives of three generations of Buddhist monks living together on a hilltop in South Korea, centred on the life of Kibong, a young man who decides to leave his unsatisfying life of ennui in the city. The film traces the lives of the three monks in their daily rituals, penetrated with hauntingly beautiful images of water, fire, earth and air, visually elucidating the tenets of Buddhist thought while captivating us with its quiet pace and understated yet powerful drama.
Biography:
Despite high media and public attention, Bae remained and still remains unknown and mysterious. It is known, however, that it took more than 7 years to complete his film, and that he used his own resources for the film and did not use any professional actors. Offers from large film studios poured in, but Bae declined them and maintains a private life. (taken from www.imdb.com).
Bae Yong-kyun was born in 1951 in Tae-gu. His parents sent him to an eliteschool that was oriented rather European-occidental. He left school after a phase of depression in order to live several months as an eremite in the mountains. With his regained inner strength he finished school and went to the faculty of arts at the university in Seoul. Already in his early years he was interested in scriptwriting and filmtechnique. He acquired his entire cinematographic knowledge as an autodidact by reading books. The successful masterpiece "Why has Bodhi Dharma left for the east" is his first film. (taken from http://www.trigon-film.org).
Artist's website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Has_Bodhi-Dharma_Left_for_the_East%3F
Venue: Hawick Film and Video Group Cinema, 8, Croft Road
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 16:30
Tickets: £4
Wasteland Utopias
Directed by: David Sherman
Running time: 01:37:00
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Wasteland Utopias is a cinematic essay featuring visionary developer Del Webb (Sun City,AZ ) and legendary radical psychiatrist/naturalist Wilhelm Reich (Orgone Energy). What on earth could these two possibly have in common? The sunny Sonoran Desert for one thing, a shadowy CIA Operative for another. Desert landscapes, desert soulscapes, sex, sustainability, Emotional Plague, cloudbusting, water retention, cosmic intervention—these and other relevancies link the 1950s with our present moment in surprising, and seemingly prophetic, ways.
Wasteland Utopias will be screened Friday 14:00, Saturday 13:40 and Sunday 13:40
Biography:
David Sherman is a US based filmmaker.
Artist's website: http://www.totalmobilehome.com/
Venue: Festival Office - 5, Buccleuch Street
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 13:30
Tickets: Free - this film will be screened on Fri, Sat and Sun (see above for details)
All Fall Down
Directed by: Philip Hoffman
Running time: 01:34:00
Year: 2009
Country: Canada
Synopsis:
All Fall Down (Philip Hoffman 94 min, 2009 Canada HDCAM) is an experimental documentary that takes a nineteenth century farmhouse in Southern Ontario, Canada, as its starting point. The film weaves together a complex temporal structure that juxtaposes the lives of two figures, one historical (a nineteenth century aboriginal woman and land rights activist) and the other contemporary (an ex-pat drifter and father of the filmmaker’s step daughter) across two hundred years. The film explores these characters through a variety of archival materials: diaries, landscape paintings, photographs, heritage films, poems, phone messages, maps, historical reenactments, songs) that express the complexity of time and the politics of land.
All Fall Down will be screened Friday 16:00, Saturday 15:20 and Sunday 15:20
Biography:
Philip Hoffman is a Canadian filmmaker.
Artist's website: http://www.philiphoffman.ca/
Venue: Festival Office - 5, Buccleuch Street
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 15:15
Tickets: Free - this film will be screened on Fri, Sat and Sun (see above for details)
Slow Action
Directed by: Ben Rivers
Running time: 00:45:00
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Slow Action is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film which exists somewhere between documentary, ethnographic study and fiction. Earth in the distant future, when the sea level has risen to absurd heights forming new isolated islands and archipelagos. Two narrators read accounts from a great library of Utopias, describing the four islands seen in the film.
Biography:
Artist-in-focus screenings and retrospectives include Courtisane Festival, Pesaro International Film Festival, London Film Festival, Punto de Vista, Tirana Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival and Indielisboa.
Selected Films
I Know Where I’m Going (2009)
A World Rattled Of Habit (2008)
Origin of the Species (2008)
Ah, Liberty! (2008)
The Coming Race (2006)
This Is My Land (2006)
Artist's website: http://www.benrivers.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 10:00
Tickets: £4
Anarcadia
Directed by: Ruth Maclennan
Running time: 00:35:00
Year: 2011
Country: Kazakhstan
Synopsis:
Anarcadia is shot in the steppe of South-Eastern Kazakhstan. Into this shifting, elemental landscape, two iconic figures – an archaeologist and prospector – seek to uncover its buried meanings and future possibilities. Overlaying rival trajectories and competing incentives, Maclennan’s overlapping, often contradictory stories echo the fundamental indeterminacy and unpredictability of the desert landscape itself.
Ruth Maclennan will introduce the film and participate in an audience Q&A after the screening.
Anarcadia is commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and John Hansard Gallery, with the support of Stills Gallery, Edinburgh and Ffoto Gallery, Cardiff, presented in association with Castlefield Gallery, Manchester. Supported by Arts Council, England, the British Council, with additional support from Henry Moore Foundation.Exhibition at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, November 9th 2010 to January 8th 2011. For more information see www.fvu.co.uk.
Biography:
Ruth Maclennan’s work is shown internationally in exhibitions and film festivals, and held in public and private collections. Exhibitions include Interspecies, the Arts Catalyst; Central Asian Project, Cornerhouse, and Space, London, touring Central Asia; Migrating Forms and New York Underground Film Festivals; Overawe, Foxy Production, New York; Medicine Now, Wellcome Collection; The Body. The Ruin. Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne; State of Mind, LSE, London. Her work is included in several monographs, including Ghosting, The Role of the Archive within Contemporary Artists’ Film and Video, J. Connarty and J. Lanyon, 2006. Artists’ books include, Re: the archive, the image, and the very dead sheep with Uriel Orlow (London, Double agents: 2004), and Style/Substance—The MaxMara Coat Project with Volker Eichelmann (MaxMara, 1999).
Artist's website: http://www.ruthmaclennan.com/
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Tickets: £4
Mirror
Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky
Running time: 01:46:00
Year: 1975
Country: Russian Federation
Synopsis:
Mirror is a masterpiece of Russian filmmaking, its poetic stream-of-consciousness visual narrative threaded through with images of the elements. It is Andrei Tarkovsky’s most autobiographical work in which he reflects upon his own childhood and the destiny of the Russian people. The film’s many layers intertwine real life and family relationships – Tarkovsky’s father, the poet Arseny Tarkovsky, reads his own poems on the soundtrack and Tarkovsky’s mother appears as herself – with memories of childhood, dreams and nightmares.
Sean Martin, filmmaker, writer and author of the book Andrei Tarkovsky will introduce the screening and participate in an audience Q&A.
Biography:
Films by Tarkovsky include The Killers (1956), There Will be No Leave Today (1959), The Steamroller and the Violin (1961), Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Voyage in Time (1980), Nostalgia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986)
Artist's website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mirror_(1975_film)
Venue: Hawick Film and Video Group Cinema, 8, Croft Road
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Tickets: £4
A Night to Remember
Directed by: Roy Ward Baker
Running time: 02:03:00
Year: 1958
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
A Night to Remember portrays in brilliant, semi-documentary style the night of April 14 1912, when the luxury liner Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, taking 1513 passengers and crew members to the bottom of the ocean. Although Kenneth More is ostensibly the star, this multi-layered production boasts more than 200 speaking parts and, for its time, spectacular special effects.
Biography:
Roy Ward Baker (1916 – 2010), born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember (1958) which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959. His later career included many horror films and television shows.
Artist's website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Night_to_Remember_(1958_film)
Venue: Hawick Film and Video Group Cinema, 8, Croft Road
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 14:00
Tickets: £4
