The 3rd edition of Slow Film Festival took place in the village of Mayfield on the 19th and 20th of October 2019. Programme highlights included an artist in focus screening of Babette Mangolte’s ‘The Sky On Location’; an exhibition of short work by Scott Barley alongside the screening of his feature ‘Sleep Has Her House’; and competition shorts and features from artists and filmmakers including Aleksandra Niemczyk, Payal Kapadia, Miguel Seabra Lopes and Karen Akerman.
SFF 2019 Trailer
And What is the Summer Saying? by Payal Kapadia
(India | 23:27 | HD)
The wind blows and afternoon descends on a small village by the jungle. A man searches for honey, as his father did before him. Women whisper secrets. Traditions are passed from one generation to the next.
Baba Vanga by Aleksandra Niemczyk
(Bosnia & Herzegovina | 76:00 | HD)
Baba Vanga loses her sight but begins to see visions of the future. From the confines of her small house in the Balkans she predicts the destruction of the world.
Circulación en la corteza by Francisco Álvarez Ríos
(Ecuador | 6:17 | HD)
Evening descends over a forest. A young man cuts his hair.
Closer by Scott Barley
(UK | 7:00 |Digital)
Adrift between stars and the trees, we pass closer to a golden dawn.
elephantfish by Meltse van Coillie
(Belgium/Netherlands | 28:00 | HD)
We find ourselves aboard a cargo ship, drifting in an endless sea. The sailors cope with the vast emptiness in time and space in their own particular ways. Gradually imagination rises from beneath the surface and takes the helm…
Hunter by Scott Barley
(UK | 14:00 | Digital)
It is nightfall. A hunter lurks in the darkness, wandering further towards the impenetrable. Do the meanings lie in the stream, in the mountains, the stars, or in the death of things?
In a Foreign Country by Miguel Seabra Lopes and Karen Akerman
(Portugal | 25:00 | 16mm)
An adaptation of a text censored in 1968. A single interior shifts from house to prison to nation as two isolated individuals attempt to confront their existence within a suppressed and claustrophobic world.
M-1 by Luciano Pérez Savoy
(Bosnia & Herzegovina | 75:00 | HD)
M deals drugs in the night. His wanderings bring together disparate places across Sarajevo, transforming narrative into a symphony of space and mood.
Nordic Grammar by Kaspar Peters
(Germany / Faroe Islands / Iceland | 23:40 | 16mm)
A woman journeys to the north. She is an empty figure, completely permeable to the world through which she moves. She comes to an abandoned house, and settles there, appropriating the lives of the former inhabitants.
Notes From a Journey by Daniel & Clara
(UK | 72:00 | HD)
Images and sound captured on a journey through the British landscape become the material for formalistic experimentation and an exploration of looking/seeing, listening/hearing. Central to the film are scenes shot at the Neolithic stone circle and mound in the village of Avebury in Wiltshire. Both the standing stones and hill are central motifs which give the film its narrative structure and act as tangible representations for that which is unseen.
Passing by Scott Barley
(UK | 2:00 | Digital)
Silence. Two deer, a doe and a fawn, pass through the frame. They are already vanishing in the destroyed and imperfect image.
Russa by João Salaviza and Ricardo Alves Jr.
(Brazil/Portugal | 19:57 | HD)
Russa returns to Bairro do Aleixo in Porto to visit her sister and celebrate her son’s birthday. In this brief reunion, Russa is witness both to the destruction and the perseverance of her community.
Sec Rouge by Kate Tessa Lee and Tom Schon
(Germany/Mauritius | 26:49 | Digital)
For centuries fisherwomen from Rodrigues Island have hunted octopus with spears. It made them self-sufficient and gave them social prestige. With the advent of globalisation and with the huge shifts in climate, their tradition and livelihood is now at risk.
Sleep Has Her House by Scott Barley
(UK | 90:00 | Digital)
In a composite of rugged wilderness, Scott Barley mixes live action, still photography and hand-drawn images into a hypnotic horror where human existence dissolves into the cosmological and sublime.
The Green Ray by Scott Barley
(UK | 12:00 | Digital)
In a single 11-minute take, we move from a red sunset to a burgeoning storm. We never see the Green Ray, that momentary flash of light as the sun dips below the horizon; instead we sense it, seeing beyond the hills and beyond ourselves.
The Growing Glow by Eli Hayes
(US | 20:00 | Digital)
Light from an unknown universe breaks into the world through the vessels of plants and trees.
The Sky on Location by Babette Mangolte
(US | 78:00 |16mm)
The landscape is not seen in the postcard grandeur of Ansel Adams, nor through the shapes of Cezanne or Constable, but rather through the mood of Turner paintings. The film attempts to construct a geography of the American West not in maps but in colours.
The Stop by Bartosz Reetz
(Poland | 14:54 | HD)
Jakub takes his last bus to school to pick up his exam results. This final journey marks the end of one stage in his life and the beginning of another.
Wedding Preparations in the Country by Akash Sharma
(Bosnia and Herzegovina | 27:00 | HD)
In post-war Bosnia & Herzegovina, Alija leads a solitary life as a worker in a waste paper factory. One day he remembers that before the war he had been engaged to be married. He decides to leave his mundane existence and journey to the countryside to find his bride.
SFF 2019 Festival Coverage:
In collaboration with Moving Image Artists we compiled a journal devoted to the 2019 festival. Alongside Q&As with Aleksandra Niemczyk, Tom Schön, Kaspar Peters, Meltse Van Coillie, Luciano Pérez Savoy, Scott Barley and Daniel & Clara, there are articles written by Giuliano Vivaldi, Nadin Mai, Peter Treherne, Savina Petkova and Emre Caglayan.
2019 Jurors
Emre Çağlayan | Grame Cole | Maureen Gueunet | Aleksandra Niemczyk | Giuliano Vivaldi