For Episode 15 we talked to Canadian filmmaker Stephen Broomer who was in Scotland to attend the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival. He was one of the main speakers at the filmmakers symposium at the festival, delivering a session entitled 'Mindstrips: The Found Image as a Psychic Analogue.  As part of his talk he shared his perceived heritage of film footage to the present day, one of the subjects we talked about in the interview you can hear on the player below. In his talk he mentioned works from filmmakers such as Joseph Cornell, Stan Brakhage, Barbara Hammer and Martin Arnold among others.

This list includes some of the specific works he references in our podcast interview.  

Rose Hobart -Joseph Cornell (1936)
Lambeth Walk - Nazi Style - Charles A. Ridley (1941)
Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son - Ken Jacobs (1969)
Berlin Horse - Malcolm Le Grice (1970)
The Hart of London - Jack Chambers (1970)
Variations on a cellophane wrapper - David Rimmer (1972)

Stephen also presented the UK premier of his 2018 work Tondal's Vision at Alchemy. We began our chat with this where Stephen shared background on the original source material for this work and the creative and chemical processes he uses.  You can see the trailer below and read more about the inception of Tondal's Vision on Stephen's blog here.  To round up our chat I asked Stephen about his recent work Fountains of Paris (2018), a work created from the Jacques Madvo Collection incorporating images of the city at work, its landmarks and architecture and medieval illustrations in stained glass. 

​On the night that Alchemy Film & Arts launched their 2019 programme went behind the scenes and talk to the team that make this world class experimental film event happen.  Interviews include Michael Pattison – Creative Director, Kerry Jones – Festival Producer, Rachael Disbury – Programme Manager and Walt Holland – Installations Manager.  We discuss the creative process of bringing such a large programme together and the highlights for this year, the huge amount of work and planning that has to go in on the run up to the festival and how they produce ten moving image installations. The 2018 edition screened 133 films from 30 countries over five days, with 36 world premieres, 18 European premieres, 24 UK premieres, 20 Scottish premieres and more than fifty filmmakers in attendance.

We really enjoyed talking to moving image artist Tereza Stehlíková.  Amongst other things, we discussed her recent work From You to Me: 4 Generations of Women, her 2016 impressionistic documentary Trieste : In-between states and her relationship with Jan Švankmajer.  'From You to Me: 4 Generations of Women' is an ongoing project exploring the unique and complex interconnections between four generations of women within the artist’s own family.  Tereza’s collection of short experimental films, beginning in 2011, capture the unique moments of her grandmother, her mother, her daughter and herself reuniting between the Czech Republic and Britain over several years.  Tereza describes Trieste : In-between states as "An impressionistic documentary, which was inspired by a conversation with John Berger. Trieste, a city with a unique history of fluctuating fortunes, is positioned on cross roads of different cultures and political states. It is a liminal place, “a hallucinatory city, where fantasy easily brushes with fact.” (Jan Morris) The film’s narrative is weaved from fragments of interviews, readings and observations and is a collaboration with writer Deborah Levy." You can see this and images from 'From You to Me on her Vimeo page. ​

This time we are in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to visit the Hands on Film Lab with its founder Leah Millar. We join Leah for a tour of the lab, take a look at some of the facilities and talk to her about her love of photochemical film.  We talk colour theory, seeing images come to life and the best ways to get film out of a cartridge. Join us as I point and ask "what does that do"

"If you are sitting in the dark and just watching your images coming up on this screen, what you have shot kind of comes to life agin.  You start to think about what you might want to do with the images, and what order you are going to put them in, and I really enjoy spending that time with the work I’ve shot again.  I really like the fact that I film it, and then spend more time with the images, thinking about them, and maybe rediscovering them."

Artists Daniel Fawcett & Clara Pais have been collaborating since 2011 on moving image work, performance and photography. Since meeting they have worked exclusively together seeing themselves as two halves of a single artist. In this episode they talk about their working practice, being present in their work, their ongoing exploration of mythology and their latest 'studio diaries' project.

They also produce Film Panic magazine, a publication dedicated to contemporary artist moving image and experimental film featuring interviews, essays, manifestos and diaries.  Their manifesto 'The Quest For The Cine-Rebis' was published in Issue 2 of Film Panic and is worth a read.  

"The Quest For The Cine-Rebis, a manifesto that calls for new approaches to cinema and challenges the patriarchal, industrial approaches that have dominated for the last century. Our intention is to strive for a new art cinema that claims the medium back from the overly rational, conservative and commercial forms that have created a conformity of expression in a time when we should be seeing a myriad of possibilities."

As with most of our contributors you can see work from Daniel & Clara on their vimeo page, and listen to our chat on the player below. 

Dr Richard Ashrowan is a moving image artist and independent film curator. He works with video and 16mm film, creating short single channel films, immersive video installations and live multi-projector performance experiments. His works are exhibited at film festivals, galleries and artist spaces around the world. Richard has been responsible for bringing experimental and artists’ film to rural Scotland in his role of Creative Director at Alchemy Film and Arts and is an active member of the Moving Image Makers Collective.

In this interview we We discuss Jarman and Greenaway, his passion for working on 16mm film and his love of Stan Brakhage and Andrei Tarkofsky.

"The first one (Tarkofsky film) I was exposed to actually was Mirror, unusually. And it probably remains to me to this day my favourite film ever. I can watch it again and again and still get more from it." - Richard Ashrowan on Andrei Tarkovsky.

You can see previews and full versions of his work on Vimeo and stream or download our interview with Richard on the player below.