Star and Shadow Cinema, Warwick Street, Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 1BB
Deep Adaptation’s film weekend is two days of experimental and artist films which explore alternative ways of living and creating outside of the dominant narratives of neo-liberal society. The programme of screenings has been developed in collaboration with artist Leah Millar as curator, and will be accompanied by space for discussion and sharing food and radical thought.
The film weekend begins on Saturday evening with William English’s documentary Heated Gloves, in which the uncompromising life of a radical, eccentric inventor is explored through archival materials and 16mm film.
Sunday brings a programme of artist short films, featuring work by Emmanuel Lefrant and Stefano Canapa amongst others.
The final film Agnès Varda, The Gleaners and I, sees Varda travelling across the French countryside to study a world of foragers and scavengers. The screening will be followed by a discussion and communal Gleaners Meal produced with elements of foraged and gleaned food.
Programme Details
Saturday 28 April
Please book here
7.30pm
William English – Heated Gloves, 2015 (118 mins)
Captain Maurice Seddon, an inventor and eccentric in the great English tradition, made electrically heated clothing for ‘paraplegics, sclerotics, arthritics, rheumatics, the poor and landscape painters’. The details of his extremely modest, uncompromising way of life are here unpicked through a rich weave of incredible archival TV appearances from around the world (he featured on amongst others, the David Letterman show) plus very touching 16mm and mobile phone footage shot by friend and director William English.
Sunday 29 April
Please book here
5pm
Shorts programme of experimental films – including work from Emmanuel Lefrant, Stefano Canapa.
6.30pm
Agnès Varda – The Gleaners and I, 2000 (82 mins)
Beginning with the famous Jean-François Millet painting of women gathering wheat left over from a harvest, Agnès Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads us from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism. Varda’s own ruminations on her life as a filmmaker (a gleaner of sorts) give her a connection to her subjects that creates a touching human portrait that the L.A. Weekly deemed “a protest film that’s part social critique, part travelogue, but always an unsentimental celebration of human resilience.”
8pm
Discussion and Gleaners Dinner
The screening of The Gleaners and I will be followed by a shared meal. Join us for a discussion over a ‘gleaned’ and foraged dinner.
About
Leah Millar is an artist and experimental film-maker. Her work articulates ideas about experience, agency and sociality, and how these can be implicated in or influenced by visual media. Having recently completed a Masters Research degree with LUX and Central Saint Martins (looking at artist film as a product of collaborative and collective practice), she now runs a community resource for artist film production in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (Hands On Film Lab). This place of experimentation and skilled production facilitates her practice while also enabling training and provision of equipment for other artists and community groups.
Star and Shadow is an alternative social, cultural, arts and community hub run by a collective of volunteers. They recently had to move out of rented premises and raised funds to buy a warehouse which has been transformed into a new cinema and community space via a unique collective self-build refurbishment project. The Deep Adaptation Film Weekend will be hosted in the cinema at Star and Shadow’s new address on Warwick Street.
Image: William English – Heated Gloves
This event is part of Deep Adaptation. An ongoing programme of commissions, talks, events and workshops looking at how current social, civic and economic issues can be understood in relation to climate change.
