Devon & Cornwall
Sunday 6th October
LOCATION: Devonport Guildhall
16:00 - 17:15 | 50min plus Q&A
Showcasing work in any genre by filmmakers based in Devon & Cornwall.
Films by:
anna best | Tom Churchill | janine rook | Pete Jerrett | Kayla Parker & Stuart Moore | Matilda Butler | Imperfect Cinema & University of Plymouth student cohort
Buddleia
anna best | 7min
"The allusions to cinema’s imaginary narratives provoke suggestive, subtle, and often critical, re-readings of Plymouth’s maritime past and military present, embedded in its streets and urban infrastructure" (L.Reynolds). Using a participatory approach to film-making, Best recruits non professional performers. Three scenarios - a small crowd, women lamenting, a couple fencing, are staged in iconic, fortified naval locations. The unmoored narrative reflects the director's relationship with the city's terrain, emphasising "feelings of obstruction, of being disenfranchised by planners and military authorities" (K.Parker).
Empty Infinity - Without Future Without Past
janine rook | 1min
A short moving visualisation for the Aural Canyon music release: ‘Empty Infinity’ by Ocean Moon and Lake Mary 2026
After You See This
Pete Jerrett | 11min
After You See This is a 10 minute horror film, created as my graduate submission for my Film & Screen Arts degree. It is a culmination of a year's intensive study in realism and immersion in horror cinema. Combining narrative with poetry and the abstract, it tells the story of a film archivist who discovers a reel of film that plunges his reality into a dark purgatory. With increasing immersion, the film climaxes with a 3-minute one-shot, enhanced by binaural audio. It is a "mixed-medium" piece, merging both digital footage with hand-processed Super8 film. It was shot over 2 days at Market Hall in Devonport.
Purling
Kayla Parker, Stuart Moore | 2min
Direct animation that intertwines – 'purls' together – two equal lengths of 16mm film. Purl is the term for a stitch in hand-knitting made by putting the needle through the front of the stitch from right to left; purl also means a swirling stream of water. On the strip of clear leader, coloured abstractions are hand-painted and overprinted with dyes; The second strip uses a photogram technique to bleach abstract shapes and marks into the emulsion of black leader, then selected frames are engraved and overlaid with adhesive Lettraset letters, numbers and diacritics. The percussion of an original sound composition derived from audio field recordings performs a counterpoint to the flow of visual music, as the pair of film strips intertweave and superimpose. Purling foregrounds the materiality of 'analogue’ film. The digitally scanned 'frame' shows the entire width of the 16mm strip, including the sprocket holes, as well as a section of each preceding and successive frame. Also visible are the incidental marks of hand-painting, such as tiny specks of fluff, airborne débris, scratches and fingerprints, and the frame-by-frame notation between each sprocket hole that guides the choreography and 'beat' of the visuals.
Fathoms Deep
Matilda Butler | 9min
Fathoms Deep (2025) explores the wounds left by mining in the Cornish and West Devon landscapes. Navigating both the internal and external remains of these 19th and 20th century ruins, which are stained with vivid colours, caused by chemical reactions which still occur over a century after their closure. Utilising chemical filmmaking (16mm film), field recordings and bodily sounds, the film investigates the residues of these extractive processes through a carefully paced gaze. Exploring how mines have not only affected the landscape, but also how their legacy has changed ways local people interact in the natural world, developing new versions of folklore.
Imperfect Cinema/
University of Plymouth Takeover
20min
Filmmaking and Creative Media students from University of Plymouth take on a short film challenge to kick start the academic year. They will present work made under the supervision of participatory film collective Imperfect Cinema (Allister Gall and Dan Paolantonio). The collaborative project celebrates creative approaches to working with time/theme/budget restrictions, the community spirit of filmmaking, and exploratory methods of collectively engaging with moving image and sound.