Interspecies Film Night

A series of tremendous  short films about the complex and often surprising communication between man and the animals. With an introduction by Rob La Frenais, who mounted the Interspecies exhibition in London in 2009. 

Three films by the French video and performance artist Nicolas Primat (1967-2009) in which, with backing from primatologists, he cooperates and communicates with apes.

 

In her video series Primate Cinema, Rachel Mayeri visualises the social life of primates and the accompanying dramas. Recordings of baboons are acted out in film noir style by actors. 

 

Acera are hermaphrodite molluscs. This film by the director and surrealist Jean Painlevé (1902-1989) is an ode to sexual freedom and became famous for its anthropomorphic dance scenes. 

 

Maclennan is a performance and video artist. We are showing three short films she shot in the rugged landscape of Northumberland, where she worked with birds of prey and their trainers.

 

A classic by the Dutch film-maker Bert Haanstra (1916-1997), filmed with a hidden camera at the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam. Are the people looking at the animals, or vice versa?

 

Director David Hinton and choreographer Yolande Snaith have created an extraordinary dance film by re-editing nature footage of birds, accompanied by a soundtrack of bird sounds and sporadic rhythmical music.

 

Fascinating pictures of flocks of sheep and cattle in the Australian wheatbelt. The rhythm of ebb and flow and the internal dynamics of their movements are accentuated by the soundscape and by intense, almost transcendent images of the link between man and the animals. 

 

The film follows a donkey for five days on its weekly visit to the elderly in English rest homes. First prize in the Belgian competition at the 2011 Courtisane Festival in Ghent.