Champions of excellence in experimental film and artists' moving image.
ALCHEMY LIVE 2020: FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
Alchemy Live, the free worldwide stream of the tenth Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, took place 1 – 3 May.
FRIDAY 1 MAY
SHORTS: GHOST DWELLING 11:00 – 12:05 BST Nine off-the-wall perspectives on habitat – from the temporary and imagined to the haunted and contested. This programme contains flashing / strobe effects
SHORTS: BUILD ME A DREAM 13:00 – 14:00 BST Three films exploring the rites, rituals and transformative potential of sleep, animation, sound – from Ancient Egypt to sunny California to a whole new digital era.
SPOTLIGHT: 72 TREES 15:00 – 15:40 BST Two ‘underemployed hipsters’ set themselves the globe-trotting challenge of visiting all 11 galleries exhibiting Damien Hirst’s spot paintings – in 12 days.
SHORTS: STILL PROCESSING 17:00 – 18:00 BST Eight films exploring the production of image and afterimage – cinema’s eternal dance. This programme contains flashing / strobe effects
FEATURE: CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY 20:00 – 21:15 BST Jonathan Perel traces, records and confronts the companies that colluded in the repression and disappearance of 30,000 workers and union delegates during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Spanish dialogue with English subtitles
SATURDAY 2 MAY
SHORTS: I CAN’T GO ON, I’LL GO ON 11:00 – 12:05 BST Seven films give forms, words and images to the visceral relationships between life and work.
SHORTS: THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS 13:00 – 13:55 BST The apparitions of these faces, the opportunities of these futures… four films presenting worlds as yet unborn.
SPOTLIGHT: SOUTH 15:00 – 15:35 BST An expressionistic response to anti-racist and anti-authoritarian liberation movements in South London and Chicago’s South Side.
SHORTS: SEEING COMES BEFORE WORDS 17:00 – 17:55 BST Eight films exploring the limits of perception, including non-human viewpoints, vertical features and the challenges of filming architecture.
SHORTS: NATION’S FAVOURITE 20:00 – 21:00 BST Seven films unearthing and reframing authenticities of place – through fog, tourism and a single packet of crisps.
SUNDAY 3 MAY
SHORTS: ALL HAPPY FAMILIES 11:00 – 12:05 BST Six films in which blood bonds are sites of pain, curiosity, hidden depths – and revelation. This programme contains flashing / strobe effects
SHORTS: THE INDEX IMPULSE 13:00 – 14:05 BST Nine films presenting narratives of category, categories of narrative, and the descriptive quality of placing images before us.
SPOTLIGHT: AUTUMN 15:00 – 15:40 BST A sparsely populated landscape in rural Russia is haunted by memories of murder. Russian dialogue with English subtitles
SHORTS: PASTIME PRESENT TENSE 17:00 – 18:00 BST Five films in which spaces live on through community and play – including a former Scottish military camp and Hawick’s Peter Scott mill.
FEATURE: PHANTOM RIDE 20:00 – 21:15 BST An American road movie made from American home movies, shot by a hosiery mill owner in Pennsylvania and retuned by found-footage maestro Stephen Broomer.