A selection of short film and video works curated by Jas Dhillon from an open call on the theme of ‘afterwardness’, showing daily at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, and 16:00.
“Reading the poem Afterwardness by Mimi Khalvati, to contextualise the framing of my selection for the Whitstable Biennale 2022 short film programme, evoked strangely familiar and uncomfortable feelings. As someone who is a member of the Indian diaspora, born and raised in the UK, I felt deeply connected to the feelings of longing, nostalgia and loss that echo through the poem. However, I also found a sense of wonder and magic through the personification of the trees and the pathways. This is something I feel my mind is hardwired to do, and in my experience, an aptitude that many people that have been othered, or have suffered adversity, harness.
In light of this I was drawn to works that seek to balance pain, sadness, rejection, and displacement, with poetic beauty, hope and humour. I’ve chosen films that tell stories, that provoke us to think about our own sense of belonging, and the role we play in creating a welcoming and nurturing home for the people and natural life we share the planet with.
To me these 10 films are honest and ‘feeling’ works. They tackle complex, very real and eternal states of being and living. They explore the pains and beauty of displacement, and the ever-resourceful power of the human spirit to adapt, survive, and thrive.” – Jas Dhillon
Grewal Twins
Masala Beans
(2 min 31 sec / 2022)
When South Asians left their homeland and settled into their new homes abroad, they added the humble tin of baked beans as a staple food item in their British kitchen cupboards. Masala beans was a new and customised culinary creation to suit the Indic palate, which longed for the dance of spices and flavours on their tongue. On a symbolic level, the creation of masala beans is the legacy of our families’ ability to assimilate into their new environment and adopt British culinary traditions into their space. It was one of the many hallmarks of embracing and adapting to their new homeland. Masala Beans celebrates and pays homage to the alchemists of the kitchen who, with their midas touch, could turn the simplest of ingredients into gold.
Abigail Mitchell
The New Me
(1 min 13 sec / 2022)
Taken from the window of a coach journey, The New Me is a fictional story in which the narrator shares their thoughts about starting their new life; who they will be, who they will meet and leaving their past behind.
Lucie Rachel & Chrissie Hyde
Factory Talk
(4 min 31 sec / 2020)
Factory Talk is a spoken word film about identity, sexuality, and masculinity in a rural factory. Through the clanging of metal, two men make small talk, but as the gripes and grumbles testify to better times, the questions rising on the factory floor are of more than just nostalgia.
Kiran Kaur Brar
Margate 2020
(7 min 55 sec / 2020-21)
Made just after the first lockdown, and after the murder of George Floyd and the global Black Lives Matter protests that followed, Margate 2020 tells stories of past and present family day trips to the sea. Using the site as an anchor, the narration shares fleeting memories and histories that surface, reflecting on experiences and observations of racism (historical, current, casual, institutional) and violence (domestic and systemic), while looking out for a new future.
Neta Miriam Perez
We Came for the Wings, We Stayed Because We Couldn’t Fly
(5 min / 2020 / subtitles)
Five wolves want nothing more than to be able to fly. Every day they try to learn to soar together, craving the moments they feel like they’re almost flying at last. One day, an enormous heaven from the sky above promises them everything they’ve been looking for, but there are conditions to this promise.
Marcus Liversedge & Karen Morash
The Knock
(12 min 13 sec / 2021)
The Knock is set in a Britain at war with itself. Scout finds a dangerous book; demanding answers from her dad, she questions the price of pacifism and the unexplained absence of her best friend next door. But does her father have his own secrets to hide?
Written by Karen Morash and directed by Marcus Liversedge, and featuring Eleanor Nawal as Scout and Stephen Oswald as Dad.
Ruth Waters
All of a sudden I began to melt
(12 min 29 sec / 2022)
All of a sudden I began to melt explores the luxury service industry, anxiety and the class politics of Wotsits. The entirety of the film takes place over a massage treatment that is flipped on its head by an unwanted visitor floating in a lotus bowl. Addressing the strange fantasy of the luxury wellness space, the film plays with the anxiety caused by the desire to have complete control over our mental and physical environment.
Created in collaboration with Foreign Body Productions and set designer Matty Mancey-Jones.
Dan Guthrie
Coaley Peak (A fragment)
(6 min 19 sec / 2021 / subtitles)
Selected by Exeter Phoenix for their 2021 Artists’ Moving Image commission, Dan Guthrie’s idea was to make a film about Blackness and belonging in the English countryside, taking a family photo of some of his relatives at the Gloucestershire viewpoint Coaley Peak as a starting point. Whilst making the film, something happened.
Patrick Flannery Walker
Soil Rises
(6 min 5 sec / 2021-22 / subtitles)
Documenting allotments in South West London’s suburbia, Soil Rises investigates the benefits these green spaces have on human wellbeing and our planet’s ecosystem. Soil Rises follows garden designer, writer and general nature enthusiast, Cleve West, through the processes of planting, nurturing and harvesting his plot in Bushy Park Allotments in the spring of 2021, while he discusses his perspective on green living and the power of a collective community in the aftermath of Covid lockdowns in the UK.
The film is part of an investigative project called Green Lands, which is incorporated into the collective called Climate & Cities.
Junior Roberts & Ollie Barron
Roots Foundation
(7 min 13 sec / 2020)
Ronnie Richards and the Roots Foundation are a 7-piece reggae band based in a small 2-bedroom flat in a block in Bermondsey, South London, who meet every Thursday evening for a jam session in the living room. Surprised to learn that they had never performed as a band outside of the flat, Junior Roberts & Ollie Barron made Roots Foundation to share their talent and encourage them to migrate to the big stage.