Showing posts with label film history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film history. Show all posts
Saturday, 7 February 2009
shadowplay
David Cairns of the incredibly erudite film blog Shadowplay is blogging once a week about Hitchcock's entire oevre. If you feel your film history knowledge is lacking you need to spend time over there.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Underground shorts film maker - Jeff Keen
"Keen started making films in the late 1950s, when he was 37. His muse and wife-to-be, Jackie Foulds, was attending college in Brighton as an art student, and Keen, then working as a gardener for Brighton council's parks department, was running a film society. He recalls his decision to become a film-maker with characteristic nonchalance. "Looking back, I didn't really think about a trajectory. I just asked to borrow a camera. I always worked with borrowed cameras. Once I started filming, I just had to carry on. I couldn't stop. It was natural."
More from the Guardian
More from the Guardian
Monday, 24 March 2008
Yiddish Film Season
Yes... nothing to do with short film but something I helped organise - 3 more films to be shown in the following three sundays. More info here.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Derek & Margaret
The Guardian has a short film up at their blog about Derek Jarman one of my favourite film-makers. I'm off to London soon to catch the exhibition at the Serpentine. Derek was a filmmaker mostly unfunded who used his limitations to create anyway and the anyway was often amazing, luminous, beautiful, awesome and life changing.
He used new editing techniques from his work doing pop promos for Mariane Faithfull and the Pet Shop Boys - he used the cheapness of Super8 in new and innovative ways in feature films.
The work of Scottish filmmaker Margaret Tait was also constrained by lack of funding and also is extraordinary.
I'm putting them out there as I think its too easy to say 'I can't make films because I don't have money' sometimes the money gets in the way. I hope that their work can inspire people to go along new paths.
Sadly no sound card in computer so unable to watch the Derek J film but one day I'll get that fixed.
He used new editing techniques from his work doing pop promos for Mariane Faithfull and the Pet Shop Boys - he used the cheapness of Super8 in new and innovative ways in feature films.
The work of Scottish filmmaker Margaret Tait was also constrained by lack of funding and also is extraordinary.
I'm putting them out there as I think its too easy to say 'I can't make films because I don't have money' sometimes the money gets in the way. I hope that their work can inspire people to go along new paths.
Sadly no sound card in computer so unable to watch the Derek J film but one day I'll get that fixed.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Made by Women in Scotland
I'm reprinting a notice about a selection of excellent films made by or produced by Scottish women at the Dundee Contempoary Arts Centre on the 20th of September.
If you've not seen these films its well worth making the effort. I had to see the Ruby Grierson short by visiting the Imperial War Museum Film Archive in London so its a great treat to have it screened in public
Scottish Women in Film at Dundee Contemporary Arts. 6.30 Thursday 20 September
An evening to celebrate remarkable women in film and their achievements. Thef ilms will be accompanied by short talks, and guest speakers include JanetMcBain, head of the Scottish Screen archive, Margaret Bennett, formerly of theSchools of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University, and Rose Pipes, co-ordinatingeditor of The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. The work of some of the women film makers featured in the Dictionary are beingscreened as part of this women's double-bill event. There will be a break for refreshments before the screening of The Seventh Veil.
6.30THE RUGGED ISLAND
Documentary film-maker Jenny Gilbertson has created an evocative representationof the life of fishing folk and crofters in Shetland through a dramatisationusing the real crofters as actors. Gilbertson lived amongst the Islanders forthe making of the film and this gives it an intimacy that is characteristic ofher work. Accompanied by a short talk from Janet McBain.Dir: Jenny Gilbertson. 1933. 42mins.
THE WESTERN ISLES
The story of life on Harris during the Second World War, photographed by thelegendary Jack Cardiff. The family's daily work continues after they hear ofthe sinking of the Atlantic Queen by a German submarine, with the knowledgethat one of their family was a crew member. Accompanied by a short talk byMargaret Bennett.Dir: Terence Egan Bishop. 1942. 14mins.
THEY ALSO SERVE
Directed by Ruby Grierson sister of documentarist John Grierson), this is atribute to the British housewife. Set in the format of a day in the life of a"typical" household the film shows how the housewife /mother contributed muchto the war effort. Introduced by Joe Hall, DCA.Dir: Ruby Grierson. 1940. 8mins
8.30The Seventh Veil
1945 90mins PGDir: Compton Bennet Stylish psychological melodrama that was a box-office smash and earnedhusband-and-wife writing team Muriel and Sydney Box an Academy Award for BestOriginal Screenplay. Starring James Mason and Herbert Lom. Francesca is aconcert pianist suffering from amnesia and depression; she enters a mentalhospital and hopes that under the care of a psychiatrist she can be inducedinto stripping away the seven veils concealing her traumatic private life.
If you've not seen these films its well worth making the effort. I had to see the Ruby Grierson short by visiting the Imperial War Museum Film Archive in London so its a great treat to have it screened in public
Scottish Women in Film at Dundee Contemporary Arts. 6.30 Thursday 20 September
An evening to celebrate remarkable women in film and their achievements. Thef ilms will be accompanied by short talks, and guest speakers include JanetMcBain, head of the Scottish Screen archive, Margaret Bennett, formerly of theSchools of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University, and Rose Pipes, co-ordinatingeditor of The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. The work of some of the women film makers featured in the Dictionary are beingscreened as part of this women's double-bill event. There will be a break for refreshments before the screening of The Seventh Veil.
6.30THE RUGGED ISLAND
Documentary film-maker Jenny Gilbertson has created an evocative representationof the life of fishing folk and crofters in Shetland through a dramatisationusing the real crofters as actors. Gilbertson lived amongst the Islanders forthe making of the film and this gives it an intimacy that is characteristic ofher work. Accompanied by a short talk from Janet McBain.Dir: Jenny Gilbertson. 1933. 42mins.
THE WESTERN ISLES
The story of life on Harris during the Second World War, photographed by thelegendary Jack Cardiff. The family's daily work continues after they hear ofthe sinking of the Atlantic Queen by a German submarine, with the knowledgethat one of their family was a crew member. Accompanied by a short talk byMargaret Bennett.Dir: Terence Egan Bishop. 1942. 14mins.
THEY ALSO SERVE
Directed by Ruby Grierson sister of documentarist John Grierson), this is atribute to the British housewife. Set in the format of a day in the life of a"typical" household the film shows how the housewife /mother contributed muchto the war effort. Introduced by Joe Hall, DCA.Dir: Ruby Grierson. 1940. 8mins
8.30The Seventh Veil
1945 90mins PGDir: Compton Bennet Stylish psychological melodrama that was a box-office smash and earnedhusband-and-wife writing team Muriel and Sydney Box an Academy Award for BestOriginal Screenplay. Starring James Mason and Herbert Lom. Francesca is aconcert pianist suffering from amnesia and depression; she enters a mentalhospital and hopes that under the care of a psychiatrist she can be inducedinto stripping away the seven veils concealing her traumatic private life.
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