Part of Bristol Radical Film Festival 2015 – celebrating 40 years of radical British cinema.
Derek Jarman is still one of the most admired British artists of the late twentieth century. A renowned filmmaker, painter, poet and gay activist, he is most famous for the feature length films he wrote and directed in the late 1970s and ‘80s. In the early ’70s, he created a series of rarely seen films shot in Super 8. Jarman made more than forty films in Super 8 that, while sharing some motifs and characteristics with his later work, form a distinct body of work. As Ed Halter describes them, they are ‘more improvisatory, often non-narrative, replete with arcane symbolism, and deeply invested in the material, non-representational qualities of the image’.
Louisa Fairclough (artist film-maker and member of BEEF) will introduce a screening of Derek Jarman’s early super 8 films. After the screening Louisa will lead a discussion with James Mackay and Tom Marshman. James Mackay is the Producer of many of Jarman’s films including The Last of England. The film is an influence for Bristol-based performance artist Tom Marshman’s next series of Beacons Icons and Dykons.
All BRFF 2015 screenings are included in the Festival Pass, available to buy here.
The Bristol Radical Film Festival
The Bristol Radical Film Festival returns for its fourth edition in October 2015. The festival is brought to you by The Bristol Radical Film Festival collective in partnership with The Centre for Moving Image Research (CMIR UWE), Arnolfini and Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film (BEEF).
This year, the festival is dedicated to celebrating the 40th anniversary of The First Festival of British Independent Cinema. Organised by the filmmaker, writer, curator and dramatist, David Hopkins (1940-2004), the 1975 festival was a landmark event in the history of alternative film in Britain. The festival screened overtly political film alongside avant-garde and experimental work, on everything from 35mm to super-8mm, with the express intention of encouraging a vibrant independent film culture that cross-pollinates different forms, approaches and traditions.
The extraordinary programme of the 1975 event is the inspiration behind this edition of the Bristol Radical Film Festival (BRFF) which, along with many other organisations around the world, is part of the contemporary incarnation of politically engaged, aesthetically innovative film culture. That culture remains as challenging and defiant as ever, and the BRFF features a range of contemporary films and filmmakers alongside work from the original programme.
Part of the Arnolfini Story Project
Arnolfini Story is a multifaceted project celebrating the heritage of the organisation. Through it, we offer information and material from our archives, invite you to share your Arnolfini memories with us, and commission artists and writers to create new response to our history. It launches in 2015, 40 years after Arnolfini moved in to the Bush Warehouse, thereby becoming one of the first organisations to pioneer reuse of Bristol’s derelict docks.
#BRFF2015
The festival is brought to you by The Bristol Radical Film Festival collective in partnership with Arnolfini, The Centre for Moving Image Research (CMIR) and Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film (BEEF).