Future My Love (c) Maja Borg, Minttu Mäntynen, Andrea Miconi

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Film

Utopian Film Series

Ideas of utopia and the spaces in-between

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FREE
21 & 22 Jan 2017
10.00 - 18.00
Drop in (limited capacity)
Screening Room
South Wing
Utopia Think Tank Weekend

As part of the our Utopian Think Tank Weekend, drop in for free Utopian film screenings, with introductions from artists and directors.

SAT 21 JAN
Ideas of Utopia: Chance and Play

Cinema has visited dystopia more than utopia but both feature regularly. The inner world of utopia, realised through the intimacy of film, enables us to explore a different, subtler take. These films, selected and presented by UTOPIA 2016 Artistic Advisor, Gareth Evans, begin by exploring the inner, intimate world of utopia – and move on to the wider landscapes in which utopian dreams have been, and continue to be shaped.

10.00 - 12.00
AHRC Shorts
As part of Utopia 2016, contemporary utopian movements from all over the UK took up stalls at Somerset House for the Utopia Fair, celebrating the pockets of utopia that are flourishing around the country. Presented in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Connected Communities programme, the projects represented different utopian ways of living in the 21st century, exploring topics including the environment, city-living, food, fashion, community and arts and craft practices.

12.30 - 14.00
Future My Love (97 minutes)
Maja Borg 
On the brink of losing the idealistic love of her life, filmmaker Maja Borg takes us on a poetic road trip through the financial collapse, exploring a radically different economic and social model proposed by 95-year-old futurist Jacque Fresco. How much freedom are we prepared to give to the ones we love? And how much responsibility are we ready to take for our society? Weaving a texture of archive footage, black and white film, and colour HD, Borg poignantly depicts the universal struggle between our heads and hearts in times of big change.

14.30 - 16.30 
Action Space (86 mins) and Q&A with Director Huw Wahl
Founded by Ken Turner and his wife Mary in 1968, Action Space used large inflatable sculptures to create interventions in public spaces. Bringing together artists, performers, dancers, painters and musicians, the movement sought to produce cultural democratic spaces for art, education and creative play outside of the restrictive space of the gallery. This film, based around the making of a new inflatable sculpture, looks at the story of Action Space, exploring contemporary issues around public/private space, individual/collective creativity, community and responsibility, emancipation and play.

17.00 - 18.00
All This Can Happen (50 mins) introduced by filmmaker David Hinton
Created by dancer Siobhan Davies and filmmaker David Hinton, All This Can Happen is a constructed from archive photographs and footage from the earliest days of cinema. Based on Robert Walser’s novella ‘The Walk’ (1917), the film follows the footsteps of the protagonist as series of small adventures and chance encounters take the walker from idiosyncratic observations of ordinary events towards a deeper pondering on the comedy, heartbreak and ceaseless variety of life.

SUN 22 JAN
Landscapes of Utopia: The Places We Build and Spaces In-between

Utopia is best understood as a blueprint, not a destination, but successive groups of people have tried to create the conditions for Utopia. These films explore the utopians who have worked on the margins to create better ways of living in response to, and in spite of, the global shockwaves of the twenty-first century, the planners who have tried to make utopia possible, and the utopian communities that have emerged from the ashes of these grand visions.

10.00 - 12.00
AHRC Shorts
As part of Utopia 2016, contemporary utopian movements from all over the UK took up stalls at Somerset House for the Utopia Fair, celebrating the pockets of utopia that are flourishing around the country. Presented in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Connected Communities programme, the projects represented different utopian ways of living in the 21st century, exploring topics including the environment, city-living, food, fashion, community and arts and craft practices.

12.00 - 14.00
Paths Through Utopia (108 mins) 
John Jordan and Isabelle Frémeaux
As the global financial crisis surfaced in 2007, artists John Jordan and Isabelle Frémeaux journeyed for seven months across Europe to investigate and experience examples of post-capitalist living – from a direct action Climate Camp on the edges of Heathrow airport to a hamlet squatted by French punks, an off grid low impact permaculture community to occupied self-managed Serbian factories to a farm where private property had been abolished. They were not looking for escapist Neverlands, blueprints for a perfect future or universal systems, but communities who simply dare to live differently, despite the catastrophe of capitalism.

14.30 - 15.30 
Another Proposal, short film (28 minutes) 
MoreUtopia!
As explained by Thomas More in the opening poem of his book, Utopia is a made-up Greek pun of both ‘no place’ (OU-topos) and ‘good place’ (EU-topos). After the Brexit vote, the artist group MoreUtopia! visited the Spanish town of Marinaleda, whose motto is: 'Una Utopia Hacia la Paz' ('A Utopia Towards Peace'). Travelling light, they documented the trip on phones - with video, photos and six-word ‘missives’ texted back to the UK, and resulting in a film. As the artists look for alternative ways of living, the language of Thomas More creeps into the correspondence via texted replies from home, comparing Britain to Spain to Utopia.

16.00 - 17.30
Estate: A Reverie (83 mins)
Andrea Luka Zimmerman
London-based filmmaker, artist and cultural activist Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s film celebrates her community’s resilience in the face of the demolition of their east London housing estate. Shot over a seven-year period from, the film captures the utopian quality of the last few years of the buildings’ existence, when, because demolition was inevitable, a sense of the possible prevailed. This period was marked by the emergence of new social and organisational relationships and a fresh understanding of how the estate’s spaces might be used.