Open City Docs Fest 21-24 June 2012
A pop-up cinema tent on Torrington Square? As part of a documentary festival? What will the neighbours say? And, by the way, a documentary-festival? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Thankfully, due to excellent film programming by Open City Docs Fest, with director Q&As, interactive events and live music, the bespoke cinema tent produced by Lost Picture Show was a roaring success. LPS festival field mice visited our town cousins and, shhh, we quite liked it.
Fresh from No Direction Home, LPS were asked to work our magic on a town square. We built a bespoke space for Open City Docs Fest that captured the spirit of their scene…
Showing in the cinema tent over 4 days between 21- 24 June we got our Art on with:
World – A Meeting With Your Alternative Double
A Happy Hour of uplifting documentaries that made us smile – presented by the Kitchen Sink Collective and washed down with a free cocktail. Kitchen Sink is a new film-making collective made up of international talent. They produce thought-provoking and challenging films that offer a variety of stories and styles. Based in London, they also teach and curate events around the world.
What’s Up Doc? Comedy Docs – selected shorts (see link) presented by a Ian Saville – the world’s only socialist magician and flanked by live improvisation performances from experimental theatre troupe ‘Do Not Adjust Your Stage’.
Aesthetic Queries a series of artist shorts (see link)
This is Called Moving: Artist Docs bringing together films from the 70s to the present day (for full programme see link).
A Simple Rhythm – Tess Girard’s film poignantly questioned, explored and ruminated upon the rhythm of life. After the film, Guy Wood and Jo Wills of WWmusic responded artistically with a cinematic score of marauding rhythms, exploring ideas of synchronicity and the ‘common’ pulse. Pulling back the curtain that night, we realised we had forgotten where we were as we half expected to see a sea of tents…
On Sunday morning Ian Helliwell’s Practical Electronica continued our musical theme which sustained into the afternoon.
Il capo Re – Score with brilliant re-scores commissioned by Open City from Jonathan Fetcher, Stranglove and London Contemporary Voices. After the drum and bass from the night before, with the help of some expertly placed mics (thank you Ed Borgnis) our tent was transformed into a cathedral fit for a choir and their conductor. We enjoyed their beautiful re-score along with 2 more to the same film – an epic Ennio Morricone-style rampage with live strings and electric guitar from Jonathan Feltcher which contrasted brilliantly to Strangelove’s minimal, zero low-end electronica reverie.
A Spark From Tottenham presented the London riots as a performance piece which certainly sparked debate.
Fest of moving image presented Sonic Architecture
Our beautiful tent also housed the Closing Night Party with live music from Orchestra Elastique. With no two performances alike this elastic collective stole our hearts and ended the festival with a psychedelic ‘bang’. We can’t wait till next year.