NIGHT VISION



A Temporary Outdoor Cinema,
Edition #2: July-August 2024
Pay What You Can

Wharf Chambers
23-35 Wharf Street
Leeds, LS2 7EQ

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PAST:

WED 21 AUG

CINEMA PENDING presents:
The Gold Diggers, Sally Potter,
1983, 1h 29m

The first feature film by director Sally Potter, The Gold Diggers is a key film of early Eighties feminist experimental cinema. Made with an all-woman crew, featuring stunning photography by Babette Magolte and a score by Lindsay Cooper. 

Celeste (Colette Laffont) is a computer clerk in a bank who becomes fascinated by the relationship between gold and power. Ruby (Julie Christie) is an enigmatic film star in quest of the truth about her own identity. As their paths cross, they come to sense that there could be a link between the male struggle for economic supremacy and the female ideal of mysterious but impotent beauty.

Content notes: Depiction of sexist and racist attitudes.

Cinema Pending:
Cosmic cinema for mindful militants programmed by Fred and Sam.

Food provided by Exhale.


WED 14 AUG

PAVILION presents:

Warren Sonbert: Short Fuse & Whiplash
+ Parsi by Eduardo Williams & Mariano Blatt, 1995-2018, 1h 20m


Pavilion presents a rare 16mm screening of the last two films by the late American experimental filmmaker Warren Sonbert. Sonbert’s work is characterised by a lyrical and polyphonic approach, in which intimate details and gestures lifted from his surroundings and relationships are transformed through intricate montage into gently epic expressions of modern life.

Short Fuse (1992) was made following Sonbert’s diagnosis with AIDS, and Whiplash (1995/97) was completed posthumously according to his instructions, after his premature death in 1995.

Both works mark Sonbert’s return to using ‘jukebox’ soundtracks after nearly two decades of making resolutely silent cinema. As a music writer as well as a filmmaker, Sonbert’s use of music – from Prokofiev to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bernard Herrmann to Laura Branigan – pins his images with melodrama and emotion, though not in ways that are prescribed.

Sonbert’s films will be preceded by Parsi (2018), a kaleidoscopic video poem by Argentine artists Eduardo ‘Teddy’ Williams and Mariano Blatt.

Shot with a 360-degree camera and edited on a VR headset by Williams, Parsi follows the daily lives of individuals from Guinea-Bissau’s queer and trans community. At the same time, poet Mariano Blatt recites his ongoing poem No Es (It Isn’t) – a mantra of similes written over a lifetime and each beginning with the phrase “Parece que” (Seems like). The result is a world fluid in perpetual motion and observation.

Pavilion:
A visual arts organisation that produces and presents ambitious new work by contemporary artists and supports the development of practitioners in the West Yorkshire region.


WED 31 JUL

SCOUR CINEMA presents:
Gallivant, Andrew Kötting, 
1996, 1h 44m

A road movie truly like no other, Gallivant chronicles Andrew Kötting’s journey around the UK’s coastline, with his eccentric ‘Big Granny’ Gladys and young daughter Eden, who has Joubert Syndrome and communicates through sign-language. 

The route, which starts at Bexhill-on-Sea and takes in a cacophony of idiosyncratic coastal locales, customs and characters, may be mapped out but very little else is. Embracing absurdity, a degree of chaos and even personal injury, Kötting creates a joyous, highly-irreverent late twentieth century version of Humphrey Jennings’ Listen to Britain, where difference is not to be feared; rather it provides the route to common ground. 

Shot on Super 8 and other lo-fi formats and incorporating sound-samples and archive footage.

Content notes: Discussions of suicide.

Scour Cinema:
A local film group focusing on more overlooked films which feel surprising in some way or another. 

Food provided by Exhale.


THU 25 JUL

BLACK CINEMA PROJECT presents: 
both a dance and a preparation for a fall, camara taylor,
2019-2022, 1h 40m

Black Cinema Project presents the film works of prolific Glasgow-based artist camara taylor:

"Often we wait until it’s too late to sit with the practices of artists. We wait until they're validated by others to learn the complexity of the work. I'm interested in an emergent black artistic vernacular.

both a dance and a preparation for a fall features films made between 2019 - 2022 that draw on taylor’s poetics concerning; abjection, Scotland's involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade and bodily excretion (inclusive of stares, speech and queefs).

As always the film will be followed by a discussion, all are welcome. Emotional and technical responses are welcome, as are open questions and silence.”

Films:
IMG_5917_, camara taylor & Sulaïman Majali, 2021, 10m
mind how you go, 2019, 7m
suspiration!, 2021, 23m
holus-bolus, 2021, 7m
HYSTERIA!, 2019, 4m
"heave; or nobody's word" - first draft 11.10.22, 2022, 12m

Content notes:Nudity, discussions of racism and racist language, discussions of death.

camara taylor:
camara taylor is an artist and - - - living in Glasgow. They tend to make still and moving images, texts, events and installations that act as moments of stasis in an enduring unravelling of—

Black Cinema Project (BCP):
BCP shows films from Africa and the diaspora; with an interest in the dynamics within film production and distribution. Their programmes are pulled from the depths of the internet; comprising obscure, neglected or banned films.

Food provided by Exhale.



THU 18 JUL

LEEDS QUEER FILM FESTIVAL presents:
Monica, Andrea Pallaoro, 
2022, 1h 53m

An intimate portrait of a woman who returns home to care for her dying mother. Featuring an award worthy performance from Trace Lysette, Monica will resonate with any trans or queer person who has reconnected with estranged family.

Content notes: Caring for a parent with terminal illness, parental estrangement and transphobia. 
Positives: Trans woman being an independent badass despite life just generally throwing shit her way.

Leeds Queer Film Festival (LQFF):
LQFF is a DIY celebration of the best in new & alternative LGBTQ cinema from around the world, organising annual festivals and year-round events.

Food provide by Exhale.


WHARF CHAMBERS
A not-for-profit multi-use venue and bar run by a workers’ co-operative for over 12 years. Prior to that, it was The Common Place; a social centre set up in 2005 as a hub to mobilse for the G8 summit in Glasgow.

Night Vision 2024 was supported by Leeds Cultural Investment Programme, Wharf Chambers and Pavilion.