A group of sixth form students from Birkenhead were the only North West contingent to screen a film they created at the British Film Institute (BFI), following a series of workshops organised by the University of Liverpool’s School of the Arts.
The students, all of whom study at Birkenhead Sixth Form College, took part in a shorter version of a 25 week BFI scheme developed in collaboration with Paris Cinematheque. Now running for 20 years, it sees young people from around the world engage in a carefully designed program of film education and film-making grammar.
The theme for this year is ‘L’Intervalle’, or ‘spacing, spaces, gaps’. The resulting six minute film features a collection of young women struggling with alcohol and alienation, and is accompanied by a haunting score by School of the Arts music graduate, Daniel Fallon.
You can watch the film here:
Professor Stephi Hemelryk Donald, Head of the University’s School of the Arts, is project director, she said: “The project aims to engage young people with cinema and help them to understand the poetics of film. They do that through watching film but also through making film according to particular rules.
“It’s a formal process but also a poetic process.”
The unscripted film was directed by Christopher Wright, Lukas Ravenscroft and Max Palmer; and featured Meg Ritchie, Elizabeth Pennington, Dasha Kruglyakova and Hannah Matthews in performing roles.
Professor Donald, who is part of the Child, Film, Nation Network founded by the Leverhulme Trust, and a Governor at Birkenhead Sixth Form College, accompanied the students to London for the BFI screening.
Mark Reid is the program lead for the BFI: “The film made by students at Birkenhead Sixth Form College is very strong compositionally.
“It really uses the various ideas of how to create spaces between people, and between film story and audience; and the idea of attraction and envy is explored through the girl’s compulsion to drink.”
The film will next be shown as part of Libidinal Circuits, a major conference organised by the International Association for the Study of the Culture of Cities and hosted by the University’s School of the Arts and Liverpool’s FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology).
Libidinal Circuits runs from July 8-10 and features an international cohort of academics and artists seeking to explore urban flow and its impact on humanity, with a particular emphasis on issues around migration. To find out more, visit: www.libidinalcircuits.com
