The Afterlight (2021 film)
The Afterlight | |
---|---|
Directed by | Charlie Shackleton |
Produced by | Catherine Bray Anthony Ing Charlie Shackleton |
Cinematography | Robbie Ryan |
Edited by | Charlie Shackleton |
Music by | Jeremy Warmsley |
Production company | Loop |
Release date |
|
Running time | 82 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
The Afterlight is a 2021 British experimental supercut art film directed and assembled by Charlie Shackleton.[1][2]
Summary
The film, produced by Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing and Shackleton, and distributed by their studio Loop,[3] consists of scenes of actors from old films who are no longer alive.[4] The only copy of the Afterlight exists on a single 35mm film print,[5] so that every time the film is played it gradually erodes until eventually it will diminish entirely and become a lost film.[6] Featuring cinematography from Robbie Ryan and composed of films from the 1960s or before,[7][8][4] the film is entirely in black and white.[9]
Films featured on The Afterlight
- The Asphalt Jungle (1950)[10]
- In a Lonely Place (1950)[10]
- Late Spring (1949)[10]
Reception
Jonathan Romney, writing for the British Film Institute, gave a positive review of the Afterlight, stating that "placed together, the images evoke a post-death existence, perfect, poetic and yet irreducibly desolate," and favourably compared the film to the 2010 supercut art installation The Clock.[11] Adrian Hui of the Michigan Daily gave a more mixed review, praising its concept and "seamless [editing] between shots from different films as if they were the same film and pieces of dialogue from different films," but stated that as an experimental film, the Afterlight was "not experimental enough," arguing that the film was "not quite bold enough in pushing the boundaries" of its source material.[12]
Release
The Afterlight had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2021.[4] As of December 2022[update], the film has been screened publicly 44 times according to its official website:
Screenings
- 15 October 2021: BFI London Film Festival, London, England
- 17 October 2021: BFI London Film Festival, London, England
- 6 November 2021: The Brighton Film Festival, Brighton, England
- 10 November 2021: Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds, England
- 25 November 2021: Cambridge Film Festival, Cambridge, England
- 4 March 2022: Campus Theatre, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States
- 25 March 2022: Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
- 31 March 2022: Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 4 May 2022: Prismatic Ground, Queens, New York City, United States
- 11 May 2022: Chicago Film Society, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- 14 May 2022: Ragtag Cinema, Columbia, Missouri, United States
- 16 May 2022: MDFF Selects, Toronto, Canada
- 19 May 2022: Visuals, Montréal, Canada
- 22 May 2022: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, United States
- 24 May 2022: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, United States
- 26 May 2022: Bellwether Series, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
- 31 May 2022: George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York, United States
- 29 June 2022: BFI London Film Festival, London, England
- 30 June 2022: King Street Cinema, Ipswich, England
- 2 July 2022: Docs Ireland, Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 3 July 2022: Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland
- 6 July 2022: The Electric, Birmingham, England
- 10 July 2022: Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, England
- 14 July 2022: HOME, Manchester, England
- 17 July 2022: Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
- 22 July 2022: Watershed, Bristol, England
- 24 July 2022: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
- 27 July 2022: Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, Scotland
- 29 July 2022: Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 31 July 2022: Genesis Cinema, London, England
- 2 August 2022: Roxie Theater, San Francisco, California, United States
- 7 August 2022: Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia
- 9 August 2022: Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia
- 18 August 2022: QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia
- 20 August 2022: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- 23 August 2022: Aero Theatre, Los Angeles, California, United States
- 17 September 2022: Camden International Film Festival, Camden, Maine, United States
- 7 October 2022: Refocus Film Festival, Iowa City, Iowa, United States
- 8 October 2022: Refocus Film Festival, Iowa City, Iowa, United States
- 15 October 2022: Widescreen Weekend, Bradford, England
- 21 October 2022: Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York, United States
- 24 October 2022: Yale Film Archive, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
- 1 November 2022: The Grand Illusion, Seattle, Washington, United States
- 25 November 2022: Austrian Film Museum, Vienna, Austria
See also
- Bill Morrison - American experimental filmmaker similar in content
- List of black-and-white films produced since 1966
- Film preservation
- nostalgia - 1971 Hollis Frampton film similar in structure
References
- ^ "Film Screening: The Afterlight". Yale Library. Yale University. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ Ghosts in the Machine: Charlie Shackleton's Afterlight Project — The Flickering Knight
- ^ Official trailer on Vimeo
- ^ a b c Dalton, Ben (11 May 2022). "Single print feature 'The Afterlight' sets self-distributed UK-Ireland cinema tour (exclusive)". Screen Daily. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ Wexner Center for the Arts
- ^ Shackleton, Charlie (7 October 2021). "I made a film that's designed to be lost – and that's not so different from Netflix". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ American Cinematheque
- ^ Living Ghosts at the Melbourne International Film Festival – Senses of Cinema
- ^ "The Afterlight". British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ a b c The Life and Death of 'The Afterlight' - Film Cred
- ^ Romney, Jonathan (1 July 2022). "The Afterlight: a film of immortals en route to oblivion". British Film Institute. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ Hui, Adrians (28 March 2022). "Ann Arbor Film Festival 2022: 'The Afterlight' is an alluring tribute to a bygone era of cinema". The Michigan Daily. Retrieved 24 December 2022.