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01.05.25
Staffordshire St Project Space
This carefully curated programme features works that challenge conventional cinematic and narrative forms, embracing visual art as a central mode of expression. As non-narrative films, these works explore the materiality of film itself, pushing the boundaries of the medium through innovative filmmaking techniques and unconventional aesthetics.
¡PíFIES!
Ignacio Tamarit, 2004, Agentina, 3’57 mins
“¡PíFIES! (from the Spanish slang “mistake”) is the kind of film I would like to see when I screen home movies, but that I never end up finding. From clippings of my own collection of home-movies, I built a rhythmic collage where at first the focus was placed on the films’ technical problems: violent pans, out of focus, insane zooms, abrupt cuts or what would have been discarded by the filmmaker instead of being kept in the final cut. However, ¡PíFIES! ends up being an eulogy to the home movie filmmaking, to the construction of these amateur handmade films, to the filmmakers who shoot their families, their exotic trips and their daily lives so that they can be remembered.”
Films To Break Projectors
Tim Grabham, 2016, UK, 5’06 mins
Films to Break Projectors glues, scrapes and splices 35mm, 16mm and 8mm film to create unprojectable celluloid collages. Reanimating the material reveals traces of ambiguous narratives that emerge from the complex loops.
Revenants: Compound Horizons
Sapphire Goss, 2024, UK, 9’00 mins
Strange worlds slowly emerge from chemical chance; landscapes excavated from emulsion. The edges of the frame make horizons, punched holes are suns or moons, static and grain bleeds into light on water into stars, chemicals form into clouds. These are spectres of light and time: one foot in the material world, one in the ether. The sound is made using field recordings blended with samples from 16mm educational films, warping and distorting with the optical strip; material and form merging in and out with each other and becoming indistinguishable. This work explores and shapes the terrain of the celluloid.
eRoding
Will De Ritter, 2024, UK, 1’44 mins
An ongoing work exploring the impact of chemical pollutants, found in water foraged from the River Roding, on celluloid film.
Film souping is the process of altering the chemical properties of a film by soaking it in liquid(s) prior to development. This film was souped, for varying amounts of time, in water taken from the River Roding, which has the highest level of PFAS pollution of any river in England.
Virage
Farzin Farzaneh, 2005, Canada, 5’46 mins
A film about turning. Shot in 16mm black and white. The frames were printed on paper of various colours and textures, hand-painted and reshot in 35mm. The soundtrack consists of recordings of ordinary household sounds that were manipulated and mixed together.
Protest
Nicci Haynes, 2023, Australia, 7’09 mins
A film about protests using footage collected by the filmmaker over several years. The images in the film were laser-etched into hand-coloured 16mm film using a laser cutter.
Memories of the Shoreline, 1-4
Chloe Charlon, 2021, UK, 4’44 mins
Four films that transverse the coast line, offering mini studies of marine and flora life, whose images are composed frame-by-frame in the camera whilst filming.
The individual titles of the films are: Restless Quarrels Between Closest Companions, The Mutterings of Maritime Lichen, Chlorophyll Lessons on Rays and Rhythm, and Those Who Wait Up at Night.
Immersio
Sophie Bouloux, 2024, France, 4’45 mins
"Caelum mergens sidera". A sonic and visual experience exploring duality. Immersio evokes light and shadow, the conscious and the unconscious, the blurring of the senses in a chaotic world, and the finitude of being.
Film Loop 31: Shinsendo & Film Loop 34: Ryoanji
Michael Lyons, 2016-2017, both Japan, both 1’30 mins
These short films are part of an ongoing series of digital loops based on segments of hand-processed 16mm film. Various techniques are used to create the loops: patterned tape is attached to clear leader; 16mm film is used in 35mm and medium format cameras; and expired film is hand-processed using household ingredients such as instant coffee and powdered green tea.
An Ode to 10k Steps
Sharon Anatole, 2025, UK, 1’46 mins
An Ode to 10k Steps is an experimental micro-short filmed on a walk from Archway to Tottenham Court Road. Shot during a period of personal stagnation, it reflects on how movement through the city can restore a sense of vitality. The film explores the shift from space to place—where once-ordinary streets become meaningful through memory, culture, and emotional connection.