Curated by Onyeka Igwe, this programme reflects on the formative influence of late-night television and experimental film culture on her filmmaking language. 

“The thought recently crossed my mind: how did my late-night television diet of Eurotrash and experimental short films inserted into general programming produce my filmmaking language? The experience of watching films from the late 90s and 2000s and simultaneously feeling a sense of recognition and wondering if I watched them before triggered this. So, here are some snippets of perhaps my accidental aesthetic tradition.” (Onyeka Igwe)

Your Views 
Gillian Wearing | 2013 | UK | 3’ | digital | sound 

Your Views is a collection of snapshots of views from people’s homes all over the world. Each segment starts with a closed curtain, blind, blanket, or with the camera underexposed and concealing the view. The view is then revealed like a curtain going back on a stage or at a cinema.

© Gillian Wearing. Courtesy Maureen Paley, London

Island Race 
William Raban | 1996 | UK | 28’ | digital | English spoken

“Island Race was filmed on the streets of the East End of London between spring 1994 and summer 1995. The film contrasts everyday events with actions of right-wing extremists, counter anti-racist demonstrations, the funeral of a gangland leader and the jingoistic street parties celebrating Victory in Europe day. Using just picture and sound, and no added commentary, the audience are given the space to draw their own conclusions about the films portrayal of English national identity in the late 1990s”. (William Raban)

Pace 
Katrina McPherson | 1995 | UK | 5’ | digital | sound

Originally screened as part of the BBC/Arts Council’s “Dance for the Camera” series, Katrina McPherson’s dance film intimately tracks the frenetic movements of a solo dancer (choreographer/filmmaker Marisa Zanotti). Closely captured with hand-held cameras, the dancer’s disorienting spins are accompanied with a fittingly jittery electronic score by Philip Jeck.

Loss of Heat 
Noski Deville | 1994 | UK | 20’ | digital | English spoken

“Focusing on two parallel lesbian relationships this film reflects the reality of living with an ‘invisible’ disability, challenging preconceived notions of the illness to reveal how it operates outside the epileptic fit on a daily basis.” (Cinenova)

Hands 
Adam Roberts | 1995 | UK | 5’ | digital | sound 

“Choreographer Jonathan Burrows and I wanted to make a film focused on hands, not as usual on moving bodies and faces. Inspired by the mathematical concept of ‘mapping,’ movement was structured by understanding each hand gesture as a note in a musical score. Jonathan ‘played’ the gestures accordingly. The camera closes in, and then stays, as if approaching to considerer a funerary stele, to receive communication in the abstract, a reminder of something forgotten, until silence and stillness inevitably return. 

Made for BBC TV, but has enjoyed expanded life in gallery settings, such as in Palazzo Grassi in 2022 in Venice, a show curate day William Forsythe.” (Adam Roberts)

Screening followed by conversation with the filmmakers.