SHORT FILMS

We’re screening over 40 short artists films during the festival. Organised into three hour-long programmes in the Tower Mill auditorium – Elementals: Presence, Elementals: Landscape of Forms and Elementals: Serious Light, plus a series of special screenings in our Improbable Cinema space. The first two programmes (Presence and Landscape of Forms) are mainly composed of films submitted this year, while the third (Serious Light) is an extra special programme of 16mm experimental film. Be sure to also check out the short film works at our Improbable Cinema space and within our moving image installations section.

All the short films are listed alphabetically on this page, but you can also check out the individual programmes on the menu to the right.

Aboriginal Myths of South London

Directed by: Steven Ball

Running time: 00:10:27
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Aboriginal Myths of South London adapts world views associated with indigenous people of Oceania to an interpretation of the space and social history of places in South London. As the first manifestation of the project, this video is presented as its prelude and explores New Kent Road, a major road close to the artist’s home. This application of attitudes to the status of the dead and human relationship to the ground, becomes a materialist alternative to the concept of the genius loci and the familiar. The approach is measured and austere, employing an arrangement of animated photographs and voice texts that becomes a poetic essay.

Biography:
Steven Ball has worked in film, video, sound and installation since the early 1980s. In the late 1980s he accidentally migrated to Melbourne, Australia. There he continued his practice making a number of film, video and sound and installation works, as well as being engaged in various curatorial, administrative, teaching and writing activities. Since returning to the UK in 2000 he has worked predominantly with digital video, producing a series of works, which among other things, are particularly concerned with digital material processes and spatial representation. More recently he has been developing these concerns through collaborative live video performance. He is currently Research Fellow at the British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London.

Artist's website: http://www.steven-ball.net

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Abstract Visions

Directed by: Tanya Shilina-Conte

Running time: 00:07:50
Year: 2011
Country: United States

Synopsis:
My project 'Abstract Visions' consists of four pieces, namely Untitled, Mosaic of Life's Gravity, Fire and Ice, and 5,778K5,778 K. My goal was to make each abstract piece stand apart in terms of style, color, atmosphere and the emotional response they evoke in the viewer. My videos are non-figural, non-narrative and make an attempt to break established patterns of visual conventions.

Biography:
Tanya Shilina-Conte holds a PhD in English from Saint-Petersburg Herzen State University. She is currently in the process of getting her second PhD in Film and Media Study from the University at Buffalo, where she also teaches film theory and criticism in the departments of Media Study and English. She is the recipient of an award in Culture and Cinematography from the Ministry of Russian Federation. Her interests are video art, experimental media and the theory of the senses in cinema.

Artist's website: http://vimeo.com/user5538119/videos

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Aerial Roots & Scottish Screen Archive

Directed by: Su Grierson and Scottish Screen Archive

Running time: 01:00:00
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Nowhere is the element of earth so viscerally felt than in the practice of farming. Su Grierson is an artist and member of a Perthshire farming family. In her film Aerial Roots, she selected film from the Scottish Screen Archive and responded by creating new video, images and recordings of contemporary farming practice. The film is a vibrant visual testament to the persistence of agricultural husbandry and the skills that harvest the soil and shape much of Scotland’s landscape. The screening of Aerial Roots (13 minutes) will be accompanied by a specially compiled selection of farming and elemental related films from the Scottish Screen Archive.

There will be an audience Q&A with Su Grierson after the screening.

Biography:
2007 Aerial Roots’ Scottish Screen Archive Live Commission, Film, exhibition and website Angus Digital Media Centre Brechin 2008 'Aerial Roots’ Exhibition & film Fold Gallery Cumbria 2009 Cromarty Film Festival Dec 2009 Aerial Roots in Northern Exposure Scottish Shorts Cupar Arts Festival shown with additional work on a farmers market stall 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival shown with additional work on a farmers market stall Polaris gallery Japan.

Artist's website: http://sugrierson.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 21, 2011
Screening time: 19:30
Programme: Scottish Screen Archive
Tickets: £4

Berlin Airlift

Directed by: Wolfgang Lehrner

Running time: 00:02:06
Year: 2011
Country: Austria

Synopsis:
Moving Images
Reality as a movie. Movie as reality.

Biography:
Please see www.wolfganglehrner.com.

Artist's website: http://www.wolfganglehrner.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Centipede Sun

Directed by: Mihai Grecu

Running time: 00:10:00
Year: 2010
Country: France

Synopsis:
"a mesmerizing video poem on transforming landscapes: series of metaphors on isolation, deconstruction and the limits of the inhabitable territory"

Biography:
Mihai Grecu was born in Romania in 1981. After studying art and design in Romania and France, he has been pursuing his artistic research at the Fresnoy Studio of Contemporary Arts. Recurring topics such as environment, water, city life and war articulate the whole of his exploration of mysterious and subconscious beginnings. These visual and poetic trips, mix several techniques and styles and may be seen as propositions for a new dream oriented technology. His work hes been shown in numerous film festivals (Locarno, Rotterdam, Festival of New Cinema in Montreal, Videoformes) and exhibitions ("Dans la nuit, des images" at the Grand Palais, "Labyrinth of my mind" at Le Cube, "Studio" at "Les Filles du Calvaire" Gallery, etc).

Artist's website: http://www.mihaigrecu.org/

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Drifting

Directed by: Lin Li

Running time: 00:03:57
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Using simple transformation of the visual image, and a sound track composed and sung by the artist, this film is a meditative video poem which explores the mesmerizing quality of gently moving water.

Biography:
Lin Li's work reflects an enduring interest in music and the interactive effect of sound and visual images. The subject matter is also influenced by her cross-cultural experience and concern with the ephemeral elements of nature and the transience of human experiences. Coming from an academic and employment background in Social Sciences and disability service, she gradually shifted vocation to Fine Art over the past ten years. Video is a medium which she has recently begun to explore. Recent exhibitions include Bath Fringe Arts Festival in 2010 and at St Andrews in the Square, Glasgow in 2011.

Artist's website: http://www.linli-art.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Dynasty

Directed by: The Icelandic Love Corporation

Running time: 00:13:00
Year: 2007
Country: Iceland

Synopsis:
We dam rivers to create electricity. Global warming is causing a confusion in our waters. Could it happen that hydro power stations will no longer supply us with electricity? What does the modern high-class housewife do when electricity is gone? In this project (photographs and video) The Icelandic Love Corporation takes on the roles of three high-class housewives, who have escaped from their safe town houses to enjoy the last moments on one of the Earths last snow caps. They are dressed in their warmest furs, hunt fish and birds for food, sit by the fire and sing, crochet and contemplate. Their phones do not work, lap tops are long gone. This is a luxury and a privilege, since most other places are sweltering hot. Shot on location in the Icelandic highland. The atmosphere is a strange mix of realism and surrealism. There is a focus on small details in contrast with the vastness of the landscape. Such as a stroke of cool breath coming from a mouth with closely painted red lips. The video presents long quiet scenes in the magical light of the Icelandic Mid Winter day. The ladies faces express calmness and fulfilment. A smile occasionally emerges as they appreciate their luck. They go on with their routines in a stoical way. What else is there to do?

Biography:
The Icelandic Love Corporation is a group of three artists: Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir (1973), Jóní Jónsdóttir (1972) and Eirún Sigurdardóttir (1971). (Dora Isleifsdottir (1970) joined the ILC in 1996 and left in 2001.) They graduated from the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts in 1996. Since then they have lived and studied in New York, Berlin and Copenhagen and are currently based in Reykjavik.

Artist's website: http://www.ilc.is

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Field Work

Directed by: Alastair Cook

Running time: 00:07:05
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
"Changes started on a day with a lamb’s coat sky. I walked the riverbank in the scent of ramsons, catkins on the birches. Water poured past in near silence, gravity pulling it to the Tay, and the sea’s endless reservoir."
Field Notes is a filmpoem by Alastair Cook of a commissioned narrative by East Lothian Makar and publisher Colin Will with sound by Italian composer Luca Nasciuti. Field Notes draws together landscape and the four elements within the context of one life.

Biography:
Alastair is a lens-based artist working in fine art photography, portraiture and film. His award winning film and photographic work is driven by his knowledge, skill and experience as a conservation architect: my work is rooted in place and the intrinsic connections between people, land and the sea. Alastair trained at the Glasgow School of Art then fled the country, returning after a dutiful spell in London and a more relaxed time in Amsterdam; he now lives and works in Edinburgh.
"A thoughtful and smart exhibition, the photographs in Analogue Decay are beguiling and breathtaking."
Colin Herd, Aesthetica Magazine, April 2011.
"Alastair Cook's films are beautiful."
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, August 2011.

Artist's website: http://alastaircook.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Finitude

Directed by: Anne Patsch

Running time: 00:02:20
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
In 'Finitude' a blank sheet of paper reveals an image of a suburban landscape just before being engulfed by flames. Moments later the blaze dies down, leaving only a calm, subtle shadow of the sheet and its image. In this work fire serves as an archetype of human innovation, illustrating both its necessity and its inherently perilous nature.

Biography:
Born in 1984, Anne Patsch is an American artist who lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Glasgow School of Art in 2011. Her work is interdisciplinary, continuously varying the materials and combinations of media employed. The concepts of perception, time, creation and destruction are a repeated focal point in her practice.

Artist's website: http://www.annepatsch.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Fleet.Miscue

Directed by: The Olivers: Dickens and Lewis

Running time: 00:08:39
Year: 2009
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
A lone being struggles through forest, bog, and heath; exploring a catalogue of sensory experiences. Later, on a far off shore a figure strides beneath towering industry; tends crops, gathers materials, drifts on. A shrouded cataclysm lies at the core - an untamed fire, consuming this world from the inside out.

Biography:
The Olivers graduated from Film and Video: Theory and Production at the University of East London in 2009. Though they work separately, their collaborative work is perhaps the most defined. Dickens and Lewis are currently working on an episodic moving-image work, which intends to expand and rethink many ideas started in Fleet.Miscue. The project will be an investigation into, storytelling & myth-making, ritual & tradition, Empire & collective memory; and will be predominantly improvised within a harsh natural landscape, at the mercy of all the elements.
Dickens: www.rotten-tropics.com
Lewis: www.spiresinthefog.com

Artist's website: http://rotten-tropics.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Forms Are Not Self-Subsistent Substances

Directed by: Samantha Rebello

Running time: 00:22:30
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
'And indeed the question which was raised of old and is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. what being is, is just the question, what is substance?' - Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII-I. Flesh, milk and meat are the subjects of an attempt to understand 'substance' with medieval imagery. Bestiary illuminations, Romanesque carvings, medieval bells and living things reveal the strangeness and violence of being.

Biography:
Samantha Rebello has been working in film and sound since 2004. Her work has been screened at festivals and venues including IFF Rotterdam, London Film Festival, Images Festival Toronto and at the Serpentine and Whitechapel Galleries in London. Her films have won awards at Media City Festival (Windsor, Ontario) 2011 and at the Aurora Festival (Norwich) in 2008. Filmography 2010 Forms Are Not Self-Subsistent Substances- 22 mins (Grand Prize, Media City Festival)
2009 Two Studies: Beasts I & Beasts 2- 8mins
2008 In Suspension- 12 mins
2007 Properties of Fluids - 10mins (2 screen performance) The Object Which Thinks Us: OBJECT 1 - 7mins (Award for Best Film, Aurora Festival)
2006 Division of the Tissues - 5mins The Surface of Residual Matter - 13mins
2005 Continuum- 15mins (3 screen performance)
2004 Outer Casings of a Few Small Creatures - 1min

Artist's website: http://www.objectwhichthinksus.blogspot.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Gralloch

Directed by: Henry Coombes

Running time: 00:05:00
Year: 2007
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Inspired by Victorian landscape paintings of the Scottish Highlands, Gralloch is a canvas that comes to life, depicting the kill of a stag by a deerstalker.

Biography:
Henry Coombes works across the mediums of film, painting and sculpture. Coombes studied at St. Martin's College of Art, London and Glasgow School of Art, graduated in 2002. Previous exhibitions include the 52nd Venice Biennale, Scottish National Galleries Edinburgh and the Liste Art Fair in Basel. His third short film The Bedfords (2009) was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland award. Coombes is currently developing his debut feature film Little Dog Boy. He lives and works in Glasgow. Filmography: Magic Towards Your Face (2010) The Bedfords (2009) Gralloch (2007) Laddy and the Lady (2005).

Artist's website: http://www.brocken-spectre.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Hydro

Directed by: Victoria Clare Bernie

Running time: 00:27:44
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Hydro is a video mapping of the hydroelectric infrastructure of northern and western Scotland, a remarkable and controversial engineering project that wrote the monumental architecture of 20th century industry across the Highland landscape as an apparently seamless waterscape, a succession of dams and aqueducts, intakes and reservoirs. Hydro will be screened Friday 12:30, Saturday 11:30 and Sunday 11:35

Biography:
Bernie’s video work has been shown in sites across Scotland and internationally. Her solo exhibitions include Cinematic Garden, for Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, and Idleness and the Dreamer at Bonhoga, Shetland. In 2006 she collaborated with architects metis in Northroom, Lighthouse, Glasgow. In 2007 she was awarded a Film and Video Umbrella Project Development Award and in 2008 her work was included in the Zoo Art Fair. In 2008-9 Bernie was the Leverhulme Trust artist in residence at SAMS Marine Laboratory near Oban. The work of the residency, Slow Water, was exhibited at Street Level Photoworks in 2011.

Artist's website: http://www.victoriaclarebernie.com

Venue: Festival Office - 5, Buccleuch Street
Screening date:
Screening time:
Programme: Improbable cinema
Tickets: Free - this film will be screened on Fri, Sat and Sun (see above for details)

Loam

Directed by: Ashley Nieuwenhuizen

Running time: 00:07:00
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Made up of two parts, Loam (2010) illustrates a carefully composed juxtaposition of animal and human. On a layer of moss, a collection of snails slowly move around; their subtle actions revealing a blinking human eye that compliments the movements of the creatures. As motions of both snail and human correspond, so does the awareness of a shared territory between the species; the blinking eye, awakening to its surroundings. As the silvery strands produced by the molluscs increase, glinting over the terrain, the film quietly switches to a fleshy mass; the film's frame exposing a handful of writhing earthworms inside a human mouth. As the creatures gradually untangle themselves from one another, the mouth appears to devour them; an implication of man's consumption of natural environments. Loam cautiously portrays the connections between man and animal, emphasising the importance of an ecological balance that is imperative to the survival of all species.

Biography:
Graduating with a First Class Degree, with Distinction in September 2010 from the Master of Fine Art Programme at Duncan of Jordanstone, Ashley Nieuwenhuizen continues to investigate the fantastical and scientific realms that serve to amalgamate features and aspects of animal and man. She has participated in several group exhibitions internationally and throughout the United Kingdom, including Running Time, The Dean Gallery, Klook Klook, Travelling Gallery, Scotland, New Contemporaries, The Royal Scottish Academy, and her first solo show, In the Absence of Wolves, Sierra Metro.
Nieuwenhuizen has recently been awarded the RSA Residencies for Scotland 2011, by the Royal Scottish Academy, in association with Hospitalfield Trust House, as well as the Visual Artist Grant Award 2011, from Fife Council. She has also been presented with the Sir William Gillies Bequest Award and John Kinross Scholarship, both from the Royal Scottish Academy, as well as the William Sangster Philips Fund and Special Mention for the Masters Programme, both awarded by Duncan of Jordanstone.

Artist's website: http://www.morphbody.weebly.com

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Metamorphosis

Directed by: Pat Law

Running time: 00:03:27
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
A response to the short George Mackay Brown story 'The Shell Story' highlighting the emotional trials of women who lost their fishermen husbands at sea and the surreal daily behaviour adopted to get them through their daily lives.

Biography:
Pat Law is a visual artist working mainly in paint and lens based image. Her work is prompted by observation of the landscape encountered through voyages or travel, often collaborating with artists of different disciplines. She lives and works in the Scottish Borders when not afloat on her Loch Fyne Skiff Kirsty.

Artist's website: http://studiolog.heriot-toun.co.uk

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Mixed Programme

Directed by: Hawick Film and Video Group - Various Filmmakers

Running time: 00:55:00
Year: 2000
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
A selection of homemade films from Hawick’s very own filmmaking society. Programme includes The Nature of Selkirk Hill [scenes of local wildlife], A Grand Day Out [a trip down the River Tyne], Let It Snow [heavy snow-fall last winter to an appropriate musical accompaniment], Wallington Walkabout [a summer outing to a stately home] and The Flowers & Fruits of Selkirk Hill [stunning nature study images].

Biography:
n/a

Artist's website: http://onlineborders.org.uk/content/hawick-film-and-video-group

Venue: Hawick Film and Video Group Cinema, 8, Croft Road
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 14:00
Programme: Hawick Film and Video Group
Tickets: £4

North West

Directed by: Katri Walker

Running time: 00:10:00
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
North West is a study of a Scottish landscape with its own history of indigenous displacement that uses cinematic language to make layered connections to the seductive visual and aural culture of the classic Hollywood Western. The work focuses specifically on John Ford's consistent location choice of Monument Valley through the geological parallels to Scotland's own sandstone inselbergs in Assynt. The film alludes to the historical relationship between Scottish emigration to the States and the emergence of the American cowboy while exploring mankind's relationship to land, land ownership and the visual depiction of land as a signifier for notions of nationalism. Wounded Knee, a singer and experimental vocalist, has created a sound piece to accompany the visuals within North West that draws on and plays with the melancholic tones of the Spaghetti Western and Scottish folk music to create a unique and ambiguous cinematic soundtrack. North West will be screened Friday 13:00, Saturday 13:10 and Sunday 13:10

Biography:
Since 2002, Katri Walker (1978, Edinburgh) has been living between Mexico City and Glasgow where she graduated from the MFA at GSA in 2007. She works predominantly with video installation and has exhibited in group shows and had her work screened throughout the U.K, in Mexico, Australia, Iceland, The Netherlands, Venezuela, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Sweden and the U.S.A. Recent projects include a solo exhibition, North West, at Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, a CCA Walls of Light Moving Image Commission and an international museum-touring group exhibition, Patria o Libertad! Katri is currently Artist-in-Residence at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh.

Artist's website: http://www.katriwalker.com

Venue: Festival Office - 5, Buccleuch Street
Screening date:
Screening time:
Programme: Improbable cinema
Tickets: Free

SHIPWRECKED, MY LIFE FOR A BAG

Directed by: CLAUDIA BORGNA

Running time: 00:09:56
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
The artist dramatically interacts and eventually destroys her surrounding installation made out of thousand of recycled plastic bags filled with water. In an apocalyptic fictional storm the artist attempts to row half a boat stranded on a bed of dried wooden sticks. She is striving in the storm trying to steer to some unknown direction that might just lead to a brief moment of poetry. Shipwrecked will be screened Friday 13:15, Saturday 13:25 and Sunday 13:25

Biography:
A Literature graduate from Genoa University Claudia received another BA from London Metropolitan University in Fine Art. Since then she has been exhibiting nationally and internationally. Claudia is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Grant, the Pollock Grant, the RBS Bursary Award as well as the Pritzker Foundation Endowed Fellowship Award. Short-listed for the BBC2 documentary: “School of Saatchi” in 2009 and for the British Women Art Prize in 2010 that same year she won of the ‘Public Speaks’ Broomhill NSP.

Artist's website: http://WWW.claudiaborgna.keepfree.de

Venue: Festival Office - 5, Buccleuch Street
Screening date:
Screening time:
Programme: Improbable cinema
Tickets: Free - this film will be screened on Fri, Sat and Sun (see above for details)

Study: l'image-temps and l'image-mouvement

Directed by: Debra Fear

Running time: 00:01:46
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Spasms of visual editing resonate aurally and pass through different planes vibrating at the threshold of the cinematic form. The layered landscape becomes transformed into the crystalline matrix within Gilles Deleuze's philosophic theories.

Biography:
I graduated in 2010 with a BA (Hons) Fine Art in Time-based Media at University of the Arts London (UAL)
You can see showreels of my filmography on my website: www.debrafear.co.uk

Artist's website: http://www.debrafear.co.uk

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

Sweep and Weep, Weep and Sweep, Under, Over, In Out, Away

Directed by: Claudia Borgna

Running time: 00:11:09
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
The film depicts the artist sweeping her surrounding natural envirnment with a broom made out of drtft wood and plastic bags.

Artist's website: http://www.claudiaborgna.keepfree.de

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

Tamantirto Timelapse

Directed by: James Cunningham

Running time: 00:06:47
Year: 2010
Country: Indonesia

Synopsis:
In the village of Tamantirto on the outskirts of Yogyakarta, performer James Cunningham moves in and out of stillness in and around a padi field. Sped up at a ratio of 125:1, an 83-minute shoot is condensed into 40 seconds.

Biography:
James Cunningham has choreographed and performed solo and ensemble stage shows, performance-installations, video-dance works and networked/online performances in Australia, Europe, UK, Canada and India. He is an artist with a disability, having permanently paralysed his left arm in a motorbike accident in 92.
He has worked extensively with director and media artist Suzon Fuks, with whom he co-founded the multimedia performance company Igneous, and in 2000 performed with DV8.
In 2008, Igneous’ short dance film Fragmentation, in which he performed and co-choreographed, was a finalist for the Reeldance Award, and their installation performance Mirage was short-listed for an Australian Dance Award.

Artist's website: http://igneous.org.au

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 22, 2011
Screening time: 11:00
Programme: ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Presence' programme)

The Angel of Callange

Directed by: Colin Andrews

Running time: 00:23:00
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
'The Angel of Callange' derives from a retracing of the first aerial voyage in Scotland. In 1785, Vincenzo Lunardi, made a daring 43 mile balloon voyage from Edinburgh to Callange. The 'Angel of Callange' retraces a particular route, mirroring a specific journey in a different time. The labourers in the fields at Callange knew nothing of Lunardi and his launch in distant Edinburgh. They saw a large, round object appear in the sky and gradually descend towards them. As Lunardi descended he shouted to them through a silver trumpet he used to project his voice. The labourers, thinking an angel was descending upon them, fled in fear. The Angel of Callange will be screened Friday 11:00, Saturday 11:00 and Sunday 11:00.

Biography:
Colin Andrews was born in Northern Ireland in 1971 and now lives and works in Scotland. He studied Fine Art Photography at Glasgow School of Art and Electronic Media at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. He has exhibited extensively internationally and currently works with a range of electronic and lens based media producing work for a variety of contexts including galleries, cinematic and public domains. He juggles his practice with work as a lecturer in Photography and Film at Edinburgh Napier University.

Artist's website: http://www.colinandrews.org

Venue: Festival Office - 5, Buccleuch Street
Screening date:
Screening time:
Programme: Improbable cinema
Tickets: Free - this film will be screened on Fri, Sat and Sun (see above for details)

The Changes that go Unnoticed

Directed by: Robyn Hall

Running time: 00:02:20
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Part one of a suite of three films. The concept behind these films was to portray the changes that have taken place but have gone unnoticed over time, in a place that is close to my heart. The films are of places I have been to frequently since i was a child.

Biography:
This is my first venture into Video Art. Over the past two years I've been studying BTEC art and design, and at the end of our second year we are given the chance to create and carry out our own project, because we hadn't covered film I thought that i would give it a shot. I had to learn how to edit both film and sound. The films is mainly made up of still photographs taken by myself.

Artist's website:

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)

The Quick and the Dead

Directed by: Patricia Townsend

Running time: 00:02:47
Year: 2008
Country: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
The Quick and the Dead is one of a series of video and installation works, inspired by Morecambe Bay, that explore the shifting relationship between land and water, above and below. The Bay has been described as a “wet desert” and is a treacherous area of quicksands and rapid tidal flow. This piece is based on an unusual but natural phenomenon in which water springs from beneath the sands. The work plays with the fluidity of time, its soundtrack accentuating the viewer’s sense of instability and imminent danger.

Biography:
Patricia Townsend works with video and installation to explore our emotional relationship with landscape. Her work has been shown internationally in gallery exhibitions and film and video screenings. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Fotofest, Houston, Texas; Leeds International Film Festival; BBC Big Screen, Manchester; Pocket Film Festival, Paris; The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness; Strang Print Room, University College, London; Tullie House, Carlisle. Patricia gained an MA Photography at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, in 2003. She is currently a PhD student at the Slade School of Fine Art.

Artist's website: http://www.patriciatownsend.co.uk

Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Tickets: £4 (for whole 'Landscape of Forms' programme)