1/17 - Sleep Has Her House
Next Wednesday (1/17), we’ll be screening Sleep Has Her House (2017), shot, written, and directed by Scott Barley. 90% of the film was shot on an iPhone 6 in Scotland and Wales, combined with hand-drawn images.
“The landscape is us. It is our history. It has seen much. It tells tales, not through voice or words, but through the markings on the ground, the trees, the water, the wind, the animals, the unknown. I want to invoke a form of storytelling, a poem, an elegy to lost things, through landscape . . . What mysteries, what qualities of humanness does nature transcend to me, to us, to the image, to beyond the screen. How can I make these creatures (the horse, the deer, the owl) unknown to us again, how can they haunt us silently? What does a mountainside, deep in its slumber say about being a human being? What does a picked flower floating in a starlit pond say? How does time pass us, as we stand rooted, in the quiet wind, mesmerised by the moon above us?” — Scott Barley interview in Film Panic, issue 4, May 2017
Next week’s screening was chosen by Connor:
The shadows of screams climb beyond the hills.
It has happened before. But this will be the last time.
The last few sense it, withdrawing deep into the forest.
They cry out into the black, as the shadows pass away, into the ground.
Sleep Has Her House is a significant landmark for me. It reaffirmed that working solo, without a script, with no dialogue was not only a valid way of working but that it could yield results that reach far closer to the sublime than conventional filmmaking. This film is challenging and requires a lot of patience but I think that it makes the experience all the more rewarding and exciting. Let’s slow wayyyy down together and lean in.
Sleep Has Her House will be playing at Working Room on Wednesday, January 17th. Doors will open at 7:30 PM and the movie will begin promptly at 8:00 PM! As always, feel free to bring a treat or beverage contribution to the studio fridge. It’s always so appreciated. Reach out if you need the address!