The Life Size Zoetrope on Directors Notes

I've just discovered a lovely in-depth interview with Mark Simon Hewis and MarBelle on Directors Notes. The interview focuses on the production process behind Mark's 2007 AnimateTV commission The Life Size Zoetrope and I'm pleased to say Mark speaks quite positively about the experience. You can listen to and download the podcast here.

The Life Size Zoetrope is showing next at the ICA in the 6th London Short Film Festival on 18 January.

Image: The Life Size Zoetrope, Mark Simon Hewis

Arts Council England commission animated Christmas Card by Animate's own Suky Best

We are thrilled that the Arts Council commissioned Suky Best to make a wonderful animated Christmas card. You can watch it here.

They made this wise decision having seen Suky's AnimateTV 2008 film Early Birds.

The Year of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Following on from Jacqui's account of her trip to Thailand for the Primitive shoot, Keith Griffiths has written an interesting piece here on the Illuminations blog about Apichatpong and the Primitive project.

Inventorium - the Brothers Quay...

Also in Brighton, for another week, the chance to catch the Quay Brothers triple-value show at the University of Brighton, part of the excellent Cine City film festival (though the festival itself is done..).

There's a Polish film poster show, including posters from the Quays' own collection and the University's archive. There's their first installation made specifically for gallery - Eurydice - She, so beloved - a film projection and 'optical box' - made with Opera North and commissioned by Capture - dark and brooding.

And...the fabulous Dormitorium - about 17 wunderkabinets that allow us, literally, a peek into the worlds that they've created. They are everything you'd imagine an exhibition of Quay Brothers cabinets should be, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go see them...  Fantastic!

They've also snuck in a showreel of some of their commercial work - including a sequence from Julie Taymor's Frida, as well as, unexpectedly, adverts for Skips and Dulux Wood, which are, really, very good indeed.

Their Animate film, The Phantom Museum, is here.

On Overgrown Paths - Ben Rivers

Just this weekend left to catch Ben Rivers' top-notch show at Permanent Gallery in Brighton, developed in collaboration with Measure. At two venues, three films showing on 16mm in three 'self-built' cabins. I think that means Ben built them, not that they built themselves.

Ben's films are uneasy portraits of people living at a remove from the rest of us, in places at a remove from where we find ourselves. And presenting them in these strange and evocative structures gives a magical sense of 'dwelling'. It's effective and affecting. Not least because it evokes the inevitable unease of coming across cabins in the woods...

Image: This is My Land, Ben Rivers

Little Big Screen

Read John Wyver's blogpost about animateprojects.org here.

The Song of...Bernadette

Bernadette is a brilliant and haunting new film (or 'video for projection') - a 'portrait' of Bernadette Devlin - by Glasgow based, Dublin born artist, Duncan Campbell, showing at Hotel gallery, London, until 18/1/2009.

More here.