BEEF //
BEEF //
BEEF I
British experimental film
Inspired by the US avant-garde, British experimental film of the last century quickly found its own direction. The films in this program represent a fraction of these rich practices. Much of this work was created at the London Film-Makers’ Co-op and centres on the activity of making and procedural systems. The co-op film printer, constructed by Malcolm Le Grice, enabled complex printing techniques and facilitated structural cinema strategies of repetition, reiteration and colour experimentation. Systems were deployed through which to give shape to the work: the earlier films in particular drew upon landscape as an existing order, while the givens dictated by film technology, such as the length of film rolls, determined a number of works including those by Guy Sherwin. The focus on landscape later evolved into interrogation of ecological issues (Sandra Lahire). The body is present through these works in relation to film operations: as a structuring tool (William Raban), as absence (Lis Rhodes), through tactility (Annabel Nicolson) and as a means of performance and gesture (Jayne Parker). The groundbreaking tendencies that emerged from this fertile period have informed much contemporary artist moving image.
Berlin Horse
Malcolm Le Grice, Great Britain, 1970, 16 mm, 1.37, colour 9', no dialogue
This multi-projection film was based entirely on a novel but simple idea of a repeating, subtly changing film loop. The soundtrack created by Brian Eno was also implemented using a tape loop. Berlin Horse examines how the eye works and how the minds builds up a perceptual rhythmic structure.
Shapes
Annabel Nicholson, Great Britain, 1970, 16 mm, 1.37, colour, 7', silent
Abstract exploration from the textural and plastic sources. The colours, shapes and rhythms of the original elements have been developed into a lyrical abstract vision by means of refilming from the screen, superimposition, stop-frame projection, editing and by an exploration of the incidental tactile process of the film i.e. dust particles.
Breath
William Raban, Great Britain, 1974, 16 mm, 1.37, colour, 13', no dialogue
Shot in a remote part of Dartmoor, Breath is structured around a precise score. Three people are each given a camera loaded with 100ft of Kodachrome film and instructed to walk away from a tape recorder that has been placed within the landscape. The camera operators’ breath and whistling become a measure for the duration of the shots as they film their journey.
Metronome
Guy Sherwin, Great Britain, 1975, 16 mm, 1.37, black&white, 3', silent
The passage of late afternoon sun across a mantelpiece during during the course of a hour or more, recorded in time-lapse at the rate of one frame per second. The weight of the metronome arm is adjusted periodically during filming to alter the phasing of the two spring-round mechanisms - one in the camera, one in the metronome.
Light Reading
Lis Rhodes, Great Britain, 1978, 16 mm, 1.37, black&white, 20', Slovenian video subtitles
Light Reading begins in darkness. A woman’s voice reads extracts of text by the American Modernist writer Gertrude Stein. When the voice stops, a loose narrative takes shape from a series of collaged photographs, including one of a bloodstained bed. In this film, as in her others, Rhodes explores the power relationships present in both ‘the grammar of looking and the grammar of language’.
Uranium Hex
Sandra Lahire, Great Britain, 1987, digital format (shot on 16 mm), 1.37, colour, 11', no dialogue
Using a kaleidoscopic array of experimental techniques, this film explores uranium mining in Canada and its destructive effects on both the environment and the women working in the mines. A plethora of images ranging from the women at work to spine-chilling representations of cancerous bodies are accompanied by unnerving industrial sounds and straightforward information from some of the women.
K
Jayne Parker, Great Britain, 1989, 16 mm, 1.37, black&white, 13', no dialogue
Part 1: a woman pulls her intestine out of her mouth and lets it fall in a soft pile at her feet. Then she knits the intestine using only her arms.
Part 2: she stands on the edge of a pool and makes herself dive again and again.
“I bring out into the open all the things I have taken in that are not mine and thereby make room for something new. I make an external order out of an internal tangle.” - J.P.
The program was curated by members of the BEFF collective—Bristol Experimental Expanded Film.
There will be an introduction before the screening.
A BOUT THE AUTHORS:
Dani Landau is a filmmaker and visual artist who specialises in participatory documentaries. He also works collaboratively on diverse film and media arts projects. Dani is part of collectives in Bristol, UK, including Bristol Expanded and Experimental Film (BEEF) and the Cube Microplex. He holds a PhD from the University of the West of England.
Niyaz Saghari is a UK-based Iranian filmmaker. She has been directing short experimental documentaries for the last 10 years. She studied film directing at the Art University of Tehran and earned an MA in animation from Newport University. The theme of her work is the cultural histories of her homeland and Bristol, with an emphasis on memories and mundane, day-to-day experiences that are considered insignificant. Super 8 is the medium of her choice. She runs Super 8 workshops and also works as an editor for feature documentaries. Her work has been screened in Ann Arbor and Oberhausen and at the Alchemy film festival.
Laura Phillips (1986) is an artist working with 16mm photochemical film processes and field recordings. Her performances are described as being in-between visual music, expanded film and performance which engages with themes of obsolescence, the commons, and information infrastructures.
Kathy Hinde is an interdisciplinary artist who creates installations, performances and site specific experiences, aiming to nurture a deeper and more embodied connection to the more-than-human world. She received an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica, an Oram Award and an Ivor Novello Award for Sound Art.
Vicky Smith’s practice in experimental animation includes imagery and traces of the body. Through direct-on-film animation, live action and performance, she activates the tension between the physical and the material to explore conditions of fragility, tenacity and resilience. Her work screens internationally in galleries and festivals (Courtisane Festival, Ghent; Rotterdam Film Festival; Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, San Francisco; Ann Arbor Festival, Michigan, 2025).
Siôn Marshall-Waters is a Welsh filmmaker based in Bristol. Having studied for an MA in visual anthropology at the University of Manchester, his work is grounded in experimental and ethnographic documentary. His short film Forest Coal Pit (2021) screened at film festivals including the BFI London Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Courtisane Festival and the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival. The film was nominated for a Grierson Award and received a special mention for the Grand Prix Documentary Short at the Cork International Film Festival. Siôn recently completed his first narrative short, Pen Mari (2025), supported by BFI Network, WePresents and produced by Bosena (Enys Men).
Matt Davies’ work is primarily engaged with the act of listening, live performance and the exploration of chance-based composition via the prism of expanded cinema. Using DIY microphones, magnetic tape, abstract turntablism, micro sounds, modified projectors and hand-processed film loops, he brings the moment and material of projection to the fore. Past projects include By the Mark, the Deep, field recordings from the submerged town of Dunwich, with Milo Newman and Brunswick Light Ray Process, a research project using light to record sound. He is currently observing agitated bodies of water and experimenting with optical sound pendulums.
Mark Vernon is a sound and radio artist whose practice is focused upon concepts of audio archaeology, magnetic memory and nostalgia. Operating on the fringes of sound art, music and broadcasting, his work's main concerns are with field recording, the manipulation of environmental sounds and the power of the disembodied voice. A keen advocate of radio as an art form, he also co-runs and curates Glasgow’s art radio station, Radiophrenia. His solo and collaborative music projects have been published through labels including Kye, Staalplaat, Flaming Pines, Ultra Eczema, Entr’acte, 3Leaves, Misanthropic Agenda and Canti Magnetici.
Louisa Fairclough is a filmmaker and artist. Over the last decade she has made a body of work in response to her deceased sister Hetta Fairclough’s sketchbooks, from expanded 16mm choral film installations to performances with choristers.