In Dreams

An hour long film programme suffused with moving images of otherworldly visions, navigating through ambiguous narratives of fever-dream realities and subconscious states of being.

Featuring 16mm works by Barbara Sternberg, Phil Solomon, Amy Halpern, Bruce Baillie, Matthias Müller, Charlotte Pryce, Sol Nagler & Alexandre Larose.

PROGRAM

TUNG
Bruce Baillie | 1966 | USA | silent | 5 minutes

One of Bruce Baillie's sensuous tone poems, TUNG is a portrait of a friend; sandy skin and flaxen hair in the early-morning light. – Canyon Cinema

TRANSITIONS
Barbara Sternberg | 1982 | Canada | 11 minutes

Transitions is a film of inner life and speaks of time, reality, power. It depicts the disquieting sensations of being between - between falling asleep and being awake, between here and there, between being and non-being. Anxiety, a state of depression. The central image is of a woman on a bed over which layers of images and sounds (voices) are superimposed. – B.S.

SLEEPY HAVEN
Matthias Müller | 1993 | Germany | 15 minutes

Accompanied by 19th century tales of the sea, Matthias Müller drowns the bodies of young sailors in Sleepy Haven’s blue ocean of lost love and desire. – Cordelia Swan

INVOCATION
Amy Halpern | 1982 | USA | silent | 2 minutes

Hands conjure up a form in space. The illusion is made wholly of lighting and dress - no optical effects.
Note: this film is presented deliberately without on-screen titles, and is meant to be a complete bright object in the dark. – A.H.

THE EXQUISITE HOUR
Phil Solomon | 1989 | USA | 14 minutes

Partly a lullaby for the dying, partly a lament at the dusk of cinema.
Based on the song by Reynaldo Hahn and Paul Verlaine. – P.S.

CURIOUS LIGHT
Charlotte Pryce | 2011 | USA | 4 minutes

A manuscript illuminated: illustrations retreat into the fiber of the page; a fleeting light dissolves into the emulsion of the film: an elusive story is revisited. This film is entirely hand-processed. – C.P.

J.
Sol Nagler & Alexandre Larose | 2008 | Canada | 7 minutes

Found memories decayed by the shock patterns of childhood trauma. This film is made mostly with footage found in the bin of an orphanage. The white progressively dissolves within a darkness more and more dense. Faces progressively dissolve within one another. – S.N.

This program is supported in part by the London Arts Council through the City of London’s Community Arts Investment Program.