estelle

I must confess that I feel a bit embarrassed blowing my own trumpet here all the time. But what's a blog for if not to champion one's achievements?!

So, I should like to cordially invite you to Botanists of the Asphalt (Part II), an exhibition curated by DFG member Stephanie Pochet at The City Arts & Music Project on City Road in London town.

The exhibition runs 5 - 26 February and there you can see artworks by Julia Kollewe, Leandro Quintero, Dasha Redkina, Mary Yacoob and Emma Davis, with videos by Jon Sack and moi, Estelle Rogers.

Now, I hate video art. I find it tediously pretentious, and sometimes simply tedious. Even as I'm writing this I can think of umpteen examples that I actually really love, so maybe ignore me. My film that's in this exhibition is alright, I reckon, and even if you think it's hideously overwrought tosh, well - it's only 3 minutes 24s long. I can't vouch for the rest of the art, but Stephanie clearly has immaculate taste so I really think you ought to go for a gander!

Fandom is a closed world. There's no half measures in being a fan, especially, it would seem, not when you're a Depeche Mode fan. To be fair, it must take some significant amount of dedication to still be stuck so firmly in the 90s. But forgive me, because I'm being cruel. The Posters Came from the Walls is about the fans and it's also a touching tribute from fans to the band. I can only admire them for their commitment - but for these fans it's them who owes Depeche Mode: Depeche Mode has saved them. It's incomprehensible to me that I might want to make a glittery beaded portrait of anyone, let alone an 80s popstar, but I'm honestly glad that someone wants to, and that it lets them express the love that they have. Outsiders one and all, these fans find something to live for in Depeche lyrics, something to connect to. Stories from militiarised and repressed societies seep out. From the generations of family fans to the synchronised marching band, fans express their fanaticism in a myriad of ways. Depeche Mode and the world of the New Romantics allows fans to focus on anything but reality as they dream of a Basildon of castles and beauty.




We don't ever find an answer to why Depeche Mode fans are so intense. Why do they love DM so much? So much that they will dress their kids up as Dave Grahan and reenact Depeche videos. The young fans, who weren't even born at the height of Depeche Mode, are surprisingly and deeply genuine. Deliberately lo-fi and subtly structured, it's easy to forget that this isn't a collection of fan's footage. No, this isn't a weighty issues-centred doc, but it is a documentary that has a wide appeal as a study of people, emotion and escapism. It would be a coldhearted viewer who couldn't relate to that. Go embrace the eighties, let your hair down into a bleached mop, paint your nails black and watch this film. What more can I say but - words are very unneccesary, they can only do harm.

Directed by Nicholas Abrahams & Jeremy Deller
www.theposterscamefromthewalls.com
Screenings from 1 December nationwide, see website for details.

Watching All Tomorrow's Parties is sort of like arriving at the end of a wildly debauched party - you're not quite sure what's going on, but it sure as hell looked like fun. The film really does drop you right into the midst of the chaos as you try to piece together fragments of evidence. I felt very sober amongst all these people having so much fun - and oh, how I wish I'd been there! The film catches you with the beat of the music addictively repeating over old Super 8 film and we cut between people and bands and the camera is right in there with the artists on stage and in with the crowd, jostling to the front with all the other cameras: so many cameras everywhere, seeing everything but no-one.

The older footage used in this film does prompt you to think back to summers long gone, warm days and dreams of rose-tinted freedom. But this nostalgia brings with it a sadness, knowing that those days were not bliss, but knowing even so that what is normal now will be idolised in the future. We see these holiday camps in a haze of distance, but imagine that reality - it's never been as blissful as you might have hoped.

Like Belle and Sebastian songs, ATP invokes a wistfulness in the viewer that it's hard to recover from. It seems that Stuart Murdoch can bring this particular kind of beautiful melancholy to all his projects. Like the guilty pleasure of sitting up all night watching festival coverage when you're safe at home drinking milky tea in your bland suburban life, sometimes I found myself just a wee bit glad that I wouldn't be the one waking up tomorrow with a raging hangover. I couldn't quite convince myself to believe in the idyl of the holiday parks which ATP is famed for using as venues.  Having spent a good few precious months of my life working on promo films for caravan parks I can assure you that the romantic retro idea of these places doesn't exist - it's just a grim, miserable reality. Sort of like going to Blackpool expecting shabby chic and finding out it's just sad and rundown. But forget about my cynicism, because this film showed that it really is all about the music, and getting the audience as close to the music as possible. We see passion oozing out of everyone on screen and it's certainly infectious.



Of course, Jonathon Caouette is an obvious choice for ATP as co-director, picking and choosing contrasting textures and sounds. The fragile narcissist that was evident in Tarnation is seen here, as the camera lingers unexpectedly and sometimes intrudes unexpectedly.

There's some fantastic imagery in there - from John Cooper Clark reciting poetry over abstract images of a man's curled toes on a water slide, to some old old footage (surely pre-1999 ATP birth) of some amazing 70s dancehall break-dancing, with the music over this being some dirty dance track. This is the stuff that makes this film - not the when camera wanders aimlessly, hunting the party, but when the directors really work their footage and mash it up in ways that should be so wrong they create something new and surprising and exciting and delicious from it.

You can get a feel for the craziness from the trailer above, and if you want to know more, ask the daddy of cool: Warp.

I'm a people person. (Some who know me might dispute this). Not an animal lover. Don't get me wrong - I like animals to a certain extent, am susceptible to fluffy cuteness on occasion, and when it comes to my own cat you might find me referring to him as a person. But in general, I don't fall over my feet with animal sentimentality. I care about people: I can relate to humans, usually.

With that in mind, I'm getting a bit worried about myself. I seem to be getting right into 'animal' films. It was a bit of an eye opener to read Kerry saying that 'Estelle loves Horses' - hey! I'm cynical, I'm grumpy... Why would I love horses when I don't even know any?

My first memory of horses was the Pony Club clique at school (and social butterfly I may have been, but I was not part of this group). I don't really see the point in horses, especially when ridden on roads at a pace dull enough to put snails to sleep, which seems to be the English way. My second and last experience of horses is somewhat more dramatic, and mellows my initial dismissive attitude. In the remote scrublands of Vanuatu, we rode tamed wild horses from my uncle's farm, tearing up the landscape and galloping recklessly though the wilderness: and then I understood some of the joy of horseriding. I couldn't imagine better than that, so there my equestrian adventures ended.



That said, Liz Mermin's Horses intrigued me: it became the one film that I knew I wanted to see at Sheffield. My chat about it and enthusiasm caused much amusement amongst the DFG lot, so I skulked along to see it alone. And I was enthralled. There's no way of writing this review without saying that I loved this quiet, reserved film. Horses don't get self-concious if you come up to them with a camera - they don't know that their expressions will be on the big screen, for the human world to see. The film didn't quite do what it said on the tin - it wasn't from a horse's point of view: more, it was an observational doc of the animals. And boy oh boy, were there one or two animals in this film - beyond the horses, we had a whole troupe of dogs, cats and even a woodmouse scampering about in the milieu. The horses engaged the audience and mellowed and softened as they became more relaxed around the cameras. To a certain extent, their personalities were depicted by the humans in the film, but the horses also firmly stamped their presence onto proceedings. Highs, lows, quiet times - we saw them all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I haven't gone completely soft and I'm not about to over-intellectalise a film about horses, but it was a gem of a film, and beautifully shot. He ran like a hairy goat, as they say, but don't let that stop you watching this highly recommended film!

Day three dawns on the DFG Doc/Fest crew. I feel that since we now have badges proclaiming our DFG-ness, we must also be a 'crew'. Go team! We d-i-s-c-o-ed last night in a whirl of wobbily rollerskating and we're in a whirlwind of activity today too. 

Right, down to business: there's a lot of it. DFG are incredibly proud of DocLab student Valentina Samac and ex-student, course assistant and DFG friend Sheherzad Kaleem, both of whom were selected to pitch at the CBA-DFID broadcast media scheme International Pitch at Newcomers Day yesterday. Sheherzad showed a real passion and depth of knowledge of her subject: a film called Children of War, about children in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, and won the travel bursary of £8000 to make her film. We look forward to seeing it! The panel were impressed with all the pitches, and hope to be able to help facilitate the other films to be made too. Doc/Fest Daily noted that Newcomers Day was a hot ticket, with 'standing room only, as new and old timers alike crowded in to learn the tricks of the trade'.

If you're in Sheffield, please do swing along to 10x10 this afternoon, 17.00 at the Site Gallery. There's always a lively and inspiring debate to be had!

I'll be at Attack of the 50 Foot Reels at 20.45 this evening...I might have a sneaky bit of exciting news for you afterwards.

Flinky flink flink. The whole festival is a-link with flink. Like facebook for festival-goers it seems to be just as addictive, and we may be bereft without it.

For now, I'm away to Shooting People's Digital Bootcamp. And I'm late already....

Film: party: network

That seems to be the order of the night here in Sheffield. A mysterious and frankly irritating mix-up means that I don't have a ticket for the opening night film: Moving to Mars...so I'll just have to go to the party afterwards instead! Also screening tonight is The Cove and Until the Next Resurrection, a Russian film, either of which will keep me amply occupied I'm sure.

Tomorrow is DFG Newcomers Day. Roll on!

I accidentally caught Phillipa Robinson's film The British in Bed last night on BBC2 as part of the Wonderland series. My initail thought was that it was a cheap gimmick thanks to the somewhat schlock-horror title...but no, it was captivating, restrained and intimate. 



The fascinating body language of couples sitting in their own bed; the kind of uncomfortable oddness of the situation; the bland cutaways (and believe it or not, that's a compliment on this occasion) that gave us an everyday glimpse into other people's normality - all these combined to give a lovely series of filmic portraits of couples. That's the part that I particularly liked - that the film could have been a series of still photographs which would have left you wondering about the stories behind these couples, and in a film format some of these questions have been answered, but not overexposed. Only the twee flute and choral music in the interludes between couples let this film down for me - it was emotionally strong and there was no need for the descent into sentimental.

Looking forward to the next in the series: The Ghostmen of Skye. Apt if somewhat inconvenient programming, it's on tomorrow night at 22.40 on BBC2...I'll be taking the ubiqutous iPlayer option, thankyou very much!

...said the drag queen to the drunkards, as he handed over his gold-beaked hawk. Jennifer was much admired, for he had a beautiful golden beak, though I fear his flying days are long passed now. We were dining (or, as it may now be known, 'experiencing dinner') at Tony Hornecker's pop-up restaurant The Pale Blue Door where more seems to be always more. Ducks on the walls, horses in the toilets, and a wonderful re-enactment of a 'classic' Tina Turner moment kept us enchanted. Even a hearse crashing down from the ceiling couldn't shake the relaxed nonchalance of the evening. It was fun, it was novel, and thanks to the flying scenery was just a teensy little bit dangerous too. It felt special, and we knew that the heady atmosphere was ours only for a short while. Send him an e-mail if you want to hear about future happenings.
 
Pop-up might be code for 'you'll be bored of this soon' and a sign of our increasingly non-commital times (and unfeasible overheads for traditional establishments), but it also harks to an era where we made things, and had a go, and took risks. It's a huge undertaking to invite strangers into your home and try to please them. I think that the reward is a more accepting customer - a less angry, more relaxed breed of consumer, one prepared to adapt, and make concessions for mistakes.

I'm off to hunt for some sloes to make sloe gin, the elderberry wine is brewing nicely, and come spring you might find yourself clamouring for a spot at Pop Up, Speak Easy: Estelle's Balcony Bar.