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This film was shot in seven days in July 2006 in Tehran, capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The shooting took place on the Vali Asr, the longest and oldest street of Tehran. It runs over 24 kilometres from North to South through the centre of the city, and shows a picture of very different social classes and ideologies. The name "Vali Asr" means "Ruler of Ages" and refers to the Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi. According to the Shiite dogma, Imam Mahdi is the twelfth and last direct successor of the Prophet. It is said he has been living in secrecy for centuries, out of public sight. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran of 1979 designates the twelfth Imam as the Head of State. The Islamic religious scholars, the Ayatollahs, are only ruling as the Imam's representatives until his return from secrecy. Twelve faces are shown. One personal object is assigned to each of the twelve people, except for the last one, a young girl. The people had these objects with them when they were filmed.

Norman Richter was born in Heide in 1979. He has been studying directing at the "Konrad Wolf" Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam-Babelsberg. He works above all in the area of documentary and experimental film and video art. His film, "Sun in an Empty Room" was shown at the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück along with "lobenden Erwähnung", from the German Filmkritik collective in the experimental film category. The film "Vali Asr - July 2006" filmed in Tehran was shown during the International Short Film Days in Oberhausen. Norman Richter's works have been exhibited in various international film and media art festivals, including: International Short Film Days, Oberhausen, 2007; European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, 2005/2007; 25fps - International experimental Film and Video Festival, Zagreb, 2006; and the Ausstellung zum Marler Video-Kunst-Preis, 2006.

“And all, all, all was nice and good” is the last sentence sung by a chorus of middle aged men that opens “You are the Center of the World”. A horse walks around, the hooves clatter in the courtyard of a pretty detached house.
 The three young men look around, wander through the deserted streets. Finally, they find themselves in a living room and remain in there.
 All they can do is wait and listen to the silence. Where are all the other people? Out there, something is wrong, for sure. The small town becomes a stage for the three local teenagers, who are looked at by the camera and „act acting“. Explicitly cinematic visual references are created, where the characters move and perform in.

Julia Charlotte Richter (*1982 in Gießen, Germany) is a video artist. She studied Fine Art in Kassel (Germany), Portsmouth (UK) and Braunschweig (Germany). Julia Charlotte Richter’s works have been shown internationally in numerous screenings and exhibitions, including Museum Folkwang Essen, Manege Moscow, Georgian National Museum Tbilisi, Goethe Institute Chicago, Toronto, Ankara etc., Filmfestival “Max-Ophüls- Preis” Saarbrücken and the “B3 Biennial of the Moving Image” Frankfurt. She received different scholarships such as the residency “Young Art in Essen” (Kunstring Folkwang/Kunsthaus Essen) in 2012 or a working grant by the Stiftung Kunstfonds in 2014. Her film “You are the Center of the World” (2015) was funded by the Bösenberg-Foundation. In 2017 she received a project grant by the Kunststiftung NRW as well as a travel grant by the Hessische Kulturstiftung.

The Battle Over Mazepa conceptualises the historical significance and contemporary perception of Ivan Mazepa, a political and military leader of the Zaporizhian Sich and Left-bank Ukraine in the late-17th and early-18th century. Addressing codes of hip-hop culture, Ridnyi borrows the popular form of a rap battle to collide two great works of world literature associated with this historical figure: Mazeppa by Lord Byron in 1819 and Poltava by Alexander Pushkin in 1828–29. While Byron envisions Mazepa as a romantic hero, seized by love, Pushkin portrays him as a traitor in accordance with the colonial attitude of the Russian Empire. Highlighting the confrontation of these two texts, Ridnyi invited four rappers from different national and cultural backgrounds to write and perform their response to the poets’ lyrics.

Mykola Ridnyi (born in Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist, filmmaker and educator. He lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship in the Lensbased class at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). His works reflect social and political realities by drawing on the contrast between fragility and resilience of individual stories and collective histories. The body of his work created within the last decade address the question of how to talk about violence and war but not multiply its brutality in the visual language. Ridnyi's works has been shown internationally including the Schinkel pavilion, Transmediale and DAAD gallery in Berlin, Albertinum in Dresden, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm, the 56-th Venice Biennale, The Kyiv Biennale and other venues and events.

Photographic Essay based on the eponymous novel by Imre Kertész ? Steinig did survive his own death. Stranded at an unfamiliar nameless airport of a big though strangely familiar city, he is looking for a way to ensure his survival in a system which condemns everyone who has not yet lost faith in individuality and freedom.

Janet Riedel (1978) ist Fotografin und Grafikerin. Seit 2003 als freie Fotografin, Redakteurin und Herstellerin für Magazine (Du, corso), Werbeagenturen (JVM, Grabarz & Partner), Verlage (Carlsen, Rowohlt) und Theater (Kampnagel) tätig. Realisierung von Buch- und Ausstellungskonzepten. 2005 Gründung des Netzwerks für Neue Subjektive Fotografie ABSAGE AN DIE WIRKLICHKEIT; dreijährige Ausstellungstour durch Deutschland, nach Sydney, Hanoi. 2004?2007 Aufbaustudium für Visuelle Kommunikation/Medien an der HfBK Hamburg. 2008?2010 entstand der Fotoessayfilm FIASKO nach dem Roman von Imre Kertész in Zusammenarbeit mit Katja Pratschke/Gusztáv Hámos. Gusztáv Hámos (1955) und Katja Pratschke (1967)sind Medienkünstler. Ihre künstlerische Praxis umfasst Arbeiten mit Fotografie, Film, Video, Installation, interaktiven Skulpturen, wie auch die Kuration von Ausstellungen, Symposien, Filmreihen, und die Herausgabe von Publikationen. Aktuelle Ausstellungen und Projektionen: Tate Modern, Arsenal Berlin, Muzéum Ludwig Budapest, ZKM. Seit 2000 experimentieren sie mit dem Stillbild im kinematografischen Kontext - im Kino wie im Ausstellungsraum - untersuchen das Verhältnis von Stillstand und Bewegung. Seit 2006 kuratieren sie die Filmreihe VIVA FOTOFILM, die u.a. im Arsenal Berlin,in der Cinémathèque Quebeocoise Montreal, dem Múzeum Ludwig Budapest und der Tate Modern London zu sehen war. Parallel dazu initiierten und organisierten sie vier Symposien, dessen Ergebnisse in der Publikation »VIVA FOTOFILM bewegt/unbewegt«, 2010 veröffentlicht wurden.

He`s an apple on a tree, happily dangling among other apples, enjoying the sun and letting the wind caress his body. But there is one thing intriguing him: he wants to find out what it?s like to be a man.

Astrid Rieger was born in 1979 in Kronstadt, Romania. She´s been living in Germany since 1990. In 1999 she started her studies at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (design School) in Offenbach, specializing in "visual communication". She passed her diploma in 2006. Zeljko Vidovic was born in 1975 in Livno (Croatia): He´s been studying at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach since 1998.

An oil tanker is navigating along the Gulf of Finland. After the open sea the vessel changes its course towards an oil refinery on the coast. In this passage man, technology and nature confront each other.

Elli Rintala was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1978. She studies documentary directing in University of Art and Design Helsinki, since 2004. She also holds an MA in Film and Television Studies from the University of Turku, Finland. I

East of Skopje there is a small quiet square where you can sometimes hear the trace of orchestral music. If you follow these sounds, they lead you into a large studio. The "Film & Music Ensemble" (FAME's project) in Skopje specialises in music for film. The hundred or so musicians, sound engineers, etc., who're part of it come every day to record scores from all over the world. The composers usually attend the sessions by teleconference. On the same day, you can move from a French TV drama to a Bollywood production. Following a smooth-running mechanism, the orchestra continuously produces music to support images and to give them their emotional tones. On the small square next to this large studio, life follows its course in a quiet indifference.

Coming from visual arts and developing a practice on the edge of music, radio and cinema, Simon Ripoll-Hurier (born 1985) tracks down situations of listening. Between 2014 and 2017, he developed Diana, a research project that includes film, video, performance and radio. He is now working on a film connecting today’s Silicon Valley with old CIA parapsychological experiments. His work has been presented in festivals, biennials, museums, galleries, and broadcasted on the radio. He also plays with Les Agamemnonz, an instrumental surf band, and co-founded *DUUU, an artist-run webradio.

The video was recorded in primary school, which I graduated in 2003. This work is inspired by architectural elements in space of the school. I am mainly interested about functionality of certain spaces of the school, for example halls, passages, gyms, dressing room and also how institutional rules and statutes can take a form of game.

Dominik Ritszel was born in 1988 in Rybnik. He studied at the Faculty of Graphics in the Institute of Arts at the University of Silesia in Cieszyn and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, where he did graphic arts. His works were exhibited, among others, at international video art festivals Les Rencontres Internationales (Gaîté Lyrique, Palais de Tokyo, Paris) and Video Art Review THE 02 Spaces as a tool for shaping social attitudes. He participated in group exhibitions - in the Show Off Section at the Krakow Photomonth Festival (2013), Curators Network in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK) in Krakow (2012), Mum, I just really need to focus on my art right now in the Arsenał Gallery in Poznan (2012), among others, and in a joint exhibition presenting works of young Silesian artists Mleczne Zęby (Milk Teeth) in the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice (2013). He had individual exhibitions in the Centre for Contemporary Arts Kronika in Bytom and in the Silesian Museum in Katowice. He was chosen among the three finalists of the Talenty Trójki 2013 contest in the Visual Arts category, he was short-listed for the Grey House Foundation Prize. In 2014 he was granted the Young Poland Programme scholarship. In spring 2014 as an artist in residence he stayed in the A-I-R Laboratory in the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle where he produced Versus, showed in Ujazdowski Castle in Bank PEKO Project Room (Warsaw).

Ritszel in his movie Reverb cleans view of audial perception. He introduce the viewer to his laboratory, spread through whole city. Process of the civilization has been reverse and for a moment, receiver gain privilege of sharpen hearing,. Sounds act on the same rules as they act in horror movies. They grow from what is known. They grow stronger and stronger, minute after minute. They become powerful and than they spread. Dynamic of the horror movie shows, that what scarry the most are not perfectly design monsters but minor, accumulative sounds. Creak of slowly opening wordrobe doors,expending floor planks under footsteps, TV which swich on itself, scraping, grating, crashing, and the most, sudden, ominous, dead silent.

Dominik Ritszel was born in 1988 in Rybnik. He studied at the Faculty of Graphics in the Institute of Arts at the University of Silesia in Cieszyn and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, where he did graphic arts. His works were exhibited, among others, at international video art festivals Les Rencontres Internationales (Gaîté Lyrique, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), Proyector, International Video Art Festival (Spain, Italy, Portugal) and Video Art Review THE 02. He participated in group exhibitions - in the Show Off Section at the Krakow Photomonth Festival (2013), The increased Difficulty od Concretation in Prague (2015), What’s Hidden in National Gallery of Art (2015), Curators Network in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK) in Krakow (2012), Mum, I just really need to focus on my art right now in the Arsenał Gallery in Poznan (2012), among others, and in a joint exhibition presenting works of young Silesian artists Milk Teeth in the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice (2013). He had individual exhibitions in the Centre for Contemporary Arts Kronika in Bytom, in Grey Gallery in Cieszyn, Grey House Gallery in Krakow and in the Silesian Museum in Katowice. He was chosen among the three finalists of the Talenty Trójki 2013 contest in the Visual Arts category, he was short-listed for the Grey House Foundation Prize. In 2014 he was granted the Young Poland Programme scholarship. In spring 2014 as an artist in residence he stayed in the A-I-R Laboratory in the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle where he produced Versus, showed in Bank Pekao Project Room in Warsaw. In 2015 he participated in group exhibition Waiting for better times Curatorated by Magda Kardasz (Zachęta Project Room, Warsaw). During of the 8th edition of Biennale of Young Artists RYBIE OKO his video Reverb received special award. He has been crowned the 2015 winner of the Young European Artist Trieste Contemporanea Award. His next individual exhibition will take place in Studio Tomaseo (Italy) 26th of March.

Video explore the relations between son and father (student/master), which is bring to inconspicuous, childish game. Situation plays in family house, where actors are my father, brother and myself. ?Preludium? is a memoir of my request to my father, who refused to teach me play piano, saying, that is too late.

In 2008 I began study on Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. My first individual exhibition ?See you all? took place in CSW Kronika in Bytom. In 2012 I took part in group exhibition; ?Whoever seen, whoever knows?, (CSW Kronika, Bytom). I was invited to take part in project ?Public space as tool for shaping social attitudes? in Chisinau (Moldova) where I made film ?Campers?. My second individual exhibition was in Częstochowa (Centrum Promocji Młodych); entitled ?No fun?. In collaboration with French curator Lore Gablier, I was co-create film ?D?eux?, based on two weeks traveling through France and England. I was chosen, as one of 20 polish artist, in polish edition of project Curators Network, which intend to promote selected artists by international group of curators in Poland and abroad. In 2013 I was participant in group exhibition young Silesian artists ?Milk Teeth? in BWA (Katowice) where I showed my film ?Preludium?. I was chosen, as one of 10 artist, in project Showoff?13. On behalf on project Showoff (cooperating with Photo Month in Krakow) I was showing my works in gallery Grey house Exhibition was entitled ?Eine kleine Werke?.

Connected,a video/drawing of a short journey through fragments of intuitive moments. The work is about following, exploring known/unknown directions, registering, leaving traces,emerging into patterns, maps of the free spirit.

Paul Ritt was born in the Netherlands (1957). He studied monumentale vormgeving at the Academie Beeldende Kunst, Maastricht, (1980-1984). He lived and worked in Australia from 1984 -1999. After studying for the Advanced diploma of Arts in Electronics, design and interactive media at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Melbourne (1997-1998), he started making short films.

A family?s place in the wilderness, outside of time; free-range animals and children, junk and nature, all within the most sublime landscape. The work aims at an idea of freedom, which is reflected in the hand-processed Scope format, but is undercut with a sense of foreboding. There?s no particular story; beginning, middle or end, just fragments of lives lived, rituals performed.

Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art. Since then he has worked predominantly in 16mm film, showing in galleries and international festivals, where he has won a number of awards. Most recent shows include; `If` Bloomberg Space, London; `Nought to Sixty`, ICA, London; `On Overgrown Paths` Permanent Gallery, Brighton.

Ben Rivers' films study the otherworldly, looking for places and stories outside the daily conventions of reality. Look Then Below was filmed in a Somerset transformed into a coloured, mist-enveloped island in an oily ocean with a cave basking in a subterranean glow. Time seems to stand still there. After Slow Action and Urth, this is the final part of a trilogy developed with American SF author Mark von Schlegell.

Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, initially in sculpture before moving into photography and super8 film. After his degree he taught himself 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing. His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. He is the recipient of numerous prizes including: FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival for his first feature film Two Years At Sea; the Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel 42, 2011; shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2010/2012; Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists, 2010. Recent exhibitions include: Slow Action, Hepworth Wakefield, 2012; Sack Barrow, Hayward Gallery, London, 2011; Slow Action, Mattâ’s Gallery, London and Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2011; A World Rattled of Habit, A Foundation, Liverpool, 2009. Artist-in-focus include Courtisane Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tirana Film Festival; Punto de Vista, Pamplona; Indielisboa and Milan Film Festival. In 1996 he co-founded Brighton Cinematheque which he then co-programmed through to its demise in 2006 “ renowned for screening a unique programme of film from its earliest days through to the latest artist’s film and video.

Trees are the silent characters, narrating the architecture and life of Churchill College (opened in 1960) through its natural history. 6’s Cowan Court (completed in 2016) inverted the spatial and material order of the picturesque Brutalism of the original college, shifting its mineral world of brick and shuttered concrete to timber. Cowan Court’s oak, both new and old, defines its structure and in turn encloses a central court filled with recently planted birch trees. The analogue materiality of Churchill College is matched by the film which, like the architecture and landscape, leaves traces of its own development. The human habitat is seen through nature ‘ swaying trees, lost animals, birds of prey, the seasons “ to create a new dreamlike environment in which any distinction between human life, architecture and nature is erased.

Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, initially in sculpture before moving into photography and super8 film. After his degree he taught himself 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing. His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. He is the recipient of numerous prizes including: FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival for his first feature film Two Years At Sea; the Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel 42, 2011; shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2010/2012; Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists, 2010. Recent exhibitions include: Slow Action, Hepworth Wakefield, 2012; Sack Barrow, Hayward Gallery, London, 2011; Slow Action, Mattâ’s Gallery, London and Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2011; A World Rattled of Habit, A Foundation, Liverpool, 2009. Artist-in-focus include Courtisane Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tirana Film Festival; Punto de Vista, Pamplona; Indielisboa and Milan Film Festival. In 1996 he co-founded Brighton Cinematheque which he then co-programmed through to its demise in 2006 “ renowned for screening a unique programme of film from its earliest days through to the latest artistâ’s film and video.

‘Ghost Strata’ refers to the missing elements from within the rock strata that despite their absence offer hints of what was once there. The film is divided into the months of the year in which the footage was captured. Filmed in various places over the globe, charting various personal movements of the filmmaker, Ghost Strata explores the differing scales of impact that humanity’s presence has on the earth in the past, present and into the future. Found sound and text create a meditation on time, memory, leftovers and extinction.

Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, initially in sculpture before moving into photography and super8 film. After his degree he taught himself 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing. His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. He is the recipient of numerous prizes including: FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival for his first feature film Two Years At Sea; the Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel 42, 2011; shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2010/2012; Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists, 2010. Recent exhibitions include: Slow Action, Hepworth Wakefield, 2012; Sack Barrow, Hayward Gallery, London, 2011; Slow Action, Matt’s Gallery, London and Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2011; A World Rattled of Habit, A Foundation, Liverpool, 2009. Artist-in-focus include Courtisane Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tirana Film Festival; Punto de Vista, Pamplona; Indielisboa and Milan Film Festival. In 1996 he co-founded Brighton Cinematheque which he then co-programmed through to its demise in 2006 – renowned for screening a unique programme of film from its earliest days through to the latest artist’s film and video.

?Some things didn?t really matter, you know, some mutations didn?t matter all that much?they were neither beneficial to survival nor detrimental to survival?but if they just hung on, there?d come a time when?that was the thing that saved the day.? Charting the beginnings of the time, through the descent of man, on to an uncertain future - all shot throughout the seasons in the garden of S, who lives in the wilderness and builds contraptions.

Born 1972. Studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art. Co-founded and programmed Brighton Cinematheque from 1996-2006. He has exhibited at many international film festivals and galleries, winning various awards, including Tiger Award, IFF Rotterdam 2008. He has been the recipient of a number of commissions, most recently a London Artist?s Film and Video Award. Recent shows include; ?A World Rattled of Habit? A Foundation, Liverpool; ?An Entangled Bank? Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; and artist-in-focus screenings in Courtisane Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival, London Film Festival, Punto de Vista, and upcoming at Tirana Film Festival and Indielisboa.

The parts of a house: a door, the shabby ceiling, the wooden floorboards, the portrait of a little girl. And the crackling of the 16mm film on which they are printed, "concrete" like the objects he films and in opposition to the fading of things in the pixels of digital. The verses of a poem by Wallace Stevens accompany the images: "The house was quiet and the world was calm/the reader became the book/and the summer night was like being aware of the book". In the succession of verses - and in the repetition of the days locked in the house during the lockdown - the reader, the book, the house and the summer night become one, cradled by the crackling of the film.

Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, initially in sculpture before moving into photography and super8 film. After his degree he taught himself 16mm filmmaking and hand-processing. His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. He is the recipient of numerous prizes including: FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival for his first feature film Two Years At Sea; the Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel 42, 2011; shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2010/2012; Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists, 2010. Recent exhibitions include: Slow Action, Hepworth Wakefield, 2012; Sack Barrow, Hayward Gallery, London, 2011; Slow Action, Mattâ’s Gallery, London and Gallery TPW, Toronto, 2011; A World Rattled of Habit, A Foundation, Liverpool, 2009. Artist-in-focus include Courtisane Festival; Pesaro International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tirana Film Festival; Punto de Vista, Pamplona; Indielisboa and Milan Film Festival. In 1996 he co-founded Brighton Cinematheque which he then co-programmed through to its demise in 2006 “ renowned for screening a unique programme of film from its earliest days through to the latest artistâ’s film and video.

The Coming Race (2006, 5 min, 16mm, b/w, Ireland) A hand processed film in which thousands of people climb a rocky mountain terrain. The destination and purpose of their ascension remains unclear. A vague, mysterious and unsettling pilgrimage fraught with unknown intentions. The title ?The Coming Race? is after a Victorian novel by E.G.E. Bulwer-Lytton, about a race of people who live under a mountain.

Studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art. Co-founded and programmed Brighton Cinematheque from 1996-2005, while developing his artistic practice -predominantly working with moving-image. He has exhibited at many international film festivals and galleries, and won various awards, most recently Jury Prize at IFF Rotterdam. He has been the recipient of a number of commissions, most recently a London Artists Film and Video Award, for which he will make a new work: « Origin of the Species ». Current/upcoming shows include 'If' Bloomberg Space, London, 'Art with Strangers' Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, and solo show with Measure, London, and retrospective screenings in Chicago, Hull IFF and Courtisane, Ghent.

THERE IS A HAPPY LAND FURTHER AWAAY (20 mins, S16, col/b+w, 2015) There Is A Happy Land Further Awaay (2015), captures the landscapes of the remote volcanic Republic of Vanuatu archipelago, before they were devastated by Cyclone Pam in early 2015, the footage becoming a ghostly document of an ecosystem now irrevocably altered. A hesitant female voice reads a poem by Henri Michaux, recounting a life lived in a distant land, full of faltering and mistakes. Island imagery of active volcanoes, underwater WW2 debris, children playing, and wrecked boats transform into intangible digital recollections of the island, made on the opposite side of the world. Images of the eroded land merge with eroding film, a lone figure on a boat drifts at sea.

Ben Rivers (born in 1972) is an artist and experimental filmmaker based in London. His work has been shown in many film festivals and galleries around the world and has won numerous awards. His work ranges from themes about exploring unknown wilderness territories to candid and intimate portrayals of real-life subjects. Rivers`s practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. Rivers uses near-antique cameras and hand develops the 16 mm film, which shows the evidence of the elements it has been exposed to – the materiality of this medium forming part of the narrative.

A fragmented narrative and exploration of abandoned spaces, using film sounds and music to create suspense and play with audience expectations.

Ben Rivers studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art. Since then he has worked predominantly in 16mm film, showing in international festivals, galleries, and UK theatres. In 1996 he co-founded and has since co-managed/programmed Brighton Cinematheque.