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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.